Symantec: We Didn’t Know Our Source Code Was
Stolen
Computer Aid has
learned the security software giant Symantec's source code for its very popular
pcAnywhere software was compromised as far back as 2006. Symantec claims that it
was unaware that a hacker attack in 2006 compromise the source code of the current
version of its pcAnywhere software line. Shortly after the 2006 security breach,
Symantec admitted that hackers had attempted to make entry into several of their
servers however Symantec went on to state that none of the servers have been
compromised in any way and there was nothing to be concerned about other than to
find out where the attack came from and who was behind the attack.
Last week however when Symantec made a public
announcement that the 2006 hack attack had indeed been very successful in
compromising its security built into its pcAnywhere as well as other software
products it makes you wonder, or in fact it makes you fear just how safe is your
computer running any Symantec product. Computer Aid
has always cautioned our customers
that Symantec security software has always been very slow to react to any issue
related to its own software security. At times in the past Computer Aid has angered some customers
by advising those customers
to start pulling away from the trust they have had in all things Symantec. As is
stated in many articles on myputerdr.com that as we have
been hanging around the hacker underground, Computer
Aid is always being made aware of how insecure Symantec security software
actually is. We are very diligent in passing this information on to our
customers
when we find it necessary to do so. This Symantec security breach seems to
reaffirm our belief that Symantec is very slow to react to issues related to
their security software that can calls a security breach in a system protected
by various security software that Symantec customers rely on. Computer Aid feels it is justified in stating Symantec is more
about advertising than being proactive in protecting their
customers.
The Symantec pcAnywhere software is one of the
most popular software Symantec offers. Offering corporate or home users to log in
to a computer they all from anywhere in the world from any other computer. When
Symantec first offered this software it had a huge ad campaign stressing just how
safe their pcAnywhere software was. They drove home the point that using pcAnywhere
in conjunction with its Norton antivirus software would allow Symantec customers to
safely and without any worries login to their computer just as safely as if they
were sitting in front of their computer at home or in their
office.
In Symantec's current announcement it stated that
all users using any form of pcAnywhere should immediately disable this software at
once. Taking this action is the only way at this point to ensure that your computer
running pcAnywhere is not made unavailable to hackers and thus keeping any
sensitive data from being compromised by this threat.
This should be of great concern to everyone. Even
if you are not running pcAnywhere on any of your computers, it is widely used
by corporations such as banks, finance companies, insurance companies. Virtually
anywhere your information is being transferred from within a company it is more
than likely being transferred using some form of pcAnywhere. This includes anywhere
that you use a debit card and a debit terminal such as Wal-Mart or a gas station
pump your debit information is being sent from that terminal to the main server and
then from the main server to a credit processing company and then onto your bank.
This is very much a concern to Computer Aid and we
feel that all of our customers
should be made aware.
Symantec claims that they did not nor
did they have any knowledge of this threat before this month.
Computer Aid closely watches all security
companies and Symantec is one of the worst at making acknowledgments of
security threats to their own software. This has been evident over the years
and confirmed at various points however Symantec rarely improves their
proactive measures to ensure the safety of consumers that have been taught
that they should be able to rely on Symantec software. Symantec is only
admitting currently that they were aware of the 2006 incident but was unaware
at that time whether or not actual code had been compromised by anyone.
Symantec would have served its customers well if it had cared enough to at
least let their customers know there was a chance. Any time, any company has
sensitive code stored directly on a computer terminal that has been accessed
by hackers. Then that company, knowing the nature of the sensitive data
should have in place a proactive plan to step up and be prepared to
protect their customers.
One of the most troubling aspects of this whole
incident is that Symantec itself was never even able to determine that the code had
been taken. This is all the more reason why any company that has sensitive data
stored on a terminal that is compromised should have in place and should be
required to take action immediately to notify people that it is possible that
important code could have been compromised regardless of how damaging it can be to
the company. It is time that all software companies are held accountable and forced
to react to just such a threat. In return this will force companies such as
Symantec to completely rethink how they protect its most sensitive information and
source code, and the consumer will be the winner.
So how did Symantec become aware that all of this
had taken place. Simply put, the hackers told them, when last week a hacker calling
himself “Yama Tough” posted online that he possessed source code stolen from
Symantec that compromised pcAnywhere and he was distributing this code to other
hackers using the hacker underground, then a posting on a twitter account
belonging to “anonymouSabu” claiming to be associated with the online vigilante
group known as "Anonymous" claimed that they were in possession of this code and
they had backward engineered this code and re-written this code to use a zero day
exploit that they would be releasing that would make any computer, any server
anywhere vulnerable, and they definitely intended to use it.
Anonymous only planted the threat, but did not
say if in fact they were already using the exploit or when they planned to use
it in the future.
At this point Computer
Aid warns anyone using any Symantec product is putting them self at
tremendous risk. Because Computer Aid is very sure
that Symantec is using a supped up version of their own security product to protect
the computers running their most valuable servers. And if their most valuable
servers are being compromised and Symantec is not informing us. Then any computer
running any Symantec product should be considered to be at a major risk. If
their own security software cannot protect their own data from hackers then how can
they protect us
Computer Aid hopes
we have as always provided you some helpful information in this article and we ask
that if you have any questions or concerns that you please contact us.
Computer Aid always looks forward to hearing
from our customers.
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