Yama Tough, Symantec Hacker, Threatens To Release Source Code For Norton Antivirus Software

(Reuters) - A computer hacker said on Friday it would release the source code for Symantec Corp's Norton antivirus software, citing a lawsuit that had been filed against the company.

The message appeared on hacker Yama Tough's Twitter feed, saying the code would be disclosed "today."

Symantec this week said that hackers had stolen a chunk of source code from a third party, but that the company's own network had not been breached. The company described the code as several years old.

Company spokesman Cris Paden said on Friday Symantec had no additional information, "particularly with regards to any new claims Anonymous is making."

A proposed class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. earlier this week accuses Symantec of seeking to persuade customers to buy its products by scaring them with misleading information about the health of their computers. The lawsuit described Norton Utilities as a form of "scareware."

Symantec said it does not believe the suit has merit, and that it will vigorously defend the case.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

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Comments

[BadgersBite]

09:13 AM on 01/16/2012

60 Second AD's Suck A$$

[William George Cheng]

07:01 PM on 01/15/2012

This is why i have a Mac, even though my computer could possibly get viruses. It's a small chance. I love how anonymous has so much power in its hands. It scared the crap out of sony too :)

[biffbaff]

09:01 AM on 01/15/2012

This is a non-story. Antivirus and heuristic algorithms are nothing new. From what I have seen, they are not terribly exciting or different from what we were writing in junior year of college. That was more than 20 years ago. I could sit down and still write some of them over a weekend.

These companies make money from people subscribing to updates and virus signatures.

[hapycap]

01:39 PM on 01/14/2012

You pay for Virus protection and than your PC crashes and they tell you that it was your software and it's not covered but they know some company in India will fix it for 139.95. The greed is what brings the World down

[William George Cheng]

07:03 PM on 01/15/2012

Greed brings most of the world down. The greed part of the world instantaneously go up.
But yea i hate when i had windows and i bought a security software but it never works

[ResearchtheFacts]

02:21 AM on 01/14/2012

Indian hackers not Chinese, Iranian or Russians? Thought they were supposed to be friends you know with all those tech jobs going to India and all.

[jflorish]

12:20 AM on 01/14/2012

If it was on a mainframe it would still be safe.

[anthonymfreed]

06:48 PM on 01/13/2012

Exclusive: Interview With Hacker YamaTough

"YamaTough, the spokesperson for the hacktivist group “The Lords of Dharmaraja” who sent Infosec Island a sample of 68 sets of usernames and passwords for compromised US government networks, has provided our publication with a series of statements regarding the group's recent exploits..."

http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/19351-Exclusive-Interview-With-Hacker-YamaTough.html

[PenguinLinux]

06:10 PM on 01/13/2012

The source code for my anti-virussoftware has been available for 20+ years and it's freely downloadable.

It's called Linux.

[Dogmudgeon]

03:14 AM on 01/14/2012

Amen to that!

I was pretty quick at detecting viruses when I used Windows. I switched over to Linux in 2008, and since that time, I have not had so much as a single virus attack.

Eye kid ewe knot.

I do run ClamAV, though, because one day, someone is going to hit Linux. Not real soon, and not real bad, but it's always better to be prepared.

[PenguinLinux]

10:02 AM on 01/16/2012

yeah, any OS can get a virus, with Linux, you just use trusted repos and check the code. It never hurts to run an AV though.

[novodia9]

05:35 PM on 01/13/2012

that's why i stuck with avg

[CERDA]

04:09 PM on 01/13/2012

I say DO IT! Companies like this have been scaring people into uneccessarry purchases for years now and they should be dealt with. Especially since so many so-called "viruses" are usually just adware that are put on to machines by the same program that is supposed to be protecting it.