Symantec: I know we said things'd get better when we sold Veritas... Symantec is slipping back into cost-cutting mode just months after the split with storage arm Veritas was supposed to provide the healing balm the business so clearly needed. The standalone security biz wants to carve out savings of $400m via an “efficiency programme” that includes “eliminating stranded costs” from the sale of …
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Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy just discovered a load of security holes in code used in Norton antivirus, Symantec Endpoint (All Platforms), SMSME, SSE and probably other products of the "when your antivirus scans a file from email/web/usb-stick software in the file can get running on your machine with full privileges" variety, thus making your machine more vulnerable than it would be without security software.
Sadly this is not going to affect their business.
i seem to recall that around twenty years ago someone found a way to get thunderbyte antivirus to run code from a file that it was scanning, it's not a new problem. Almost nobody is able to usefully assess security software or pays any attention to it's problems. In a rational market McAfee (now Intel security) and symantec would be out of business instead of making billions.
"In a rational market..."
You mean one not driven by woefully outdated audit regulations?
I'd have dumped AV completely years ago if my auditors would let me. Instead, if they find one workstation or server with it missing it's a "finding", despite their own admission that AV is total crap when it comes to any meaningful protection. So we keep spending the money year after year, for zero (and probably negative) value.
Users don't know any better except that they need an AV because of the media over the years and press releases about the latest threat (many came out of Symantec). So the OEM bundles Symantec or McAfee and user goes with it. There are others for less money and a lot less resource intensive. None obviously stop everything, but in my experience Symantec and McAfee are the worst due to bloat and resource hogging alone, much less the fact that they seem to miss more than they find.
The Corporate world is weird. The audit points state AV. Seems auditors only know Symantec or McAfee.... anything else isn't a real AV to them.
There's a special place in Hell reserved for anyone associated with NAV07 (Norton Antivirus circa 2007 timeframe).
Symantec software has done great harm over the years. Wasted vast amounts of time, as people struggled to keep their Symantec-infected PCs stable. A most evil sneak attack of crap code.
Symantec deserve to suffer greatly.
to be clear on the terminology:
- "efficiency program" = cutting staff
- “eliminating stranded costs” = cutting staff
- “rationalising corporate infrastructure = cutting staff
- "simplifying the enterprise portfolio" = dropping products and cutting staff associated with them.
Mr Brown and his company busting lackeys deserve all the hell their golden parachutes can carry as they jettison yet another tanker load of human detritus. I almost dance a jig daily having been freed for a reasonably decent payoff from one of their "headwind readjustments". Employees and ex-employees will recognise his phrase for BOHICA (bend over here it comes again) meaning more layoffs coming.
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