When Antivirus Firms Can't Tell They've Been Hacked, We're All Doomed
Anti-virus giant Symantec says it did not know back in 2006 that source code for its software was stolen when it experienced a breach at that time.
The company surprised the public last week when it disclosed that hackers had obtained source code for its pcAnywhere software and other products, and that the code had likely been stolen in a six-year-old breach that Symantec had never disclosed. Symantec said in its announcement that users should disable pcAnywhere until the company had time to update the software to ensure that hackers are unable to exploit holes they might find in the code.
The pcAnywhere software is a popular remote access program that lets administrators get into computers to troubleshoot and also allows mobile users on the road to access content on their office desktop. It’s also installed on point-of-sale terminals in stores and restaurants to allow administrators to update software that’s used to process the information on credit and debit cards as they’re scanned at a register check-out.
