pcAnywhere Source Code Leaked: What does that mean?

You may have seen pcAnywhere, Norton, and Symantec mentioned in the news lately. It appears that a group of hackers had stolen code from Symantec dating back to 2006 and the code in question was used on a couple of the company’s popular software titles.. We’re here to explain what all of this means to you.

Since January 23^rd, Symantec has been working with law enforcement agencies to find out exactly what a group of hackers was attempting to do with source code from 2006. The good news for Norton/Symantec users is the code being used by the hackers is older code. Users of older versions of the Symatec software won’t be vulnerable to possible hijacking/malware attempts from hackers.

Currently, only code from Norton Utilities and pcAnywhere have been released, so we’re urging users of these products (pcAnywhere especially) to make sure their software is up to date. pcAnywhere version 12.5 is the most up-to-date version of that product available. Symantec has been working fervently to patch their products so that the old code being leaked doesn’t put any of its users at risk. Because of the constant updates they make to their Norton Antivirus and Internet Security packages, leaks of that 2006 source code won’t be very useful for hackers. So if you’re using Antivirus/Internet Security from Symantec, don’t worry – you’re at very little risk.

Want more information? For any users of Symantec products, please visit: http://www.symantec.com/theme.jsp?themeid=anonymous-code-claims&inid=us_ghp_banner1_anonymous

For users of pcAnywhere, please make sure you’re patches are up to date by visiting: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH180472

-Agent William G.