Symantec confirmed with SecurityWeek today, that following claims from Anonymous that additional Symantec product source code would be released, the claims are true, and the said files are in fact the legitimate source code from its pcAnywhere product.
In an email to SecurityWeek, Chris Paden, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications at Symantec noted, “we can confirm that the source code is legitimate. It is part of the original cache of code for 2006 versions of the products that Anonymous has claimed to have been in possession during the last few weeks.”
Paden also said the company anticipates Anonymous to post the rest of the code they have claimed have in their possession. “So far, they have posted code for the 2006 version of Norton Internet Security and pcAnywhere. We also anticipate that at some point, they will post the code for Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition and Norton Systemworks. Both products no longer exist,” Paden noted.
Symantec also issued the following statement on the incident:
Symantec was prepared for the code to be posted at some point, and has developed and distributed a series of patches since Jan. 23rd to protect our users against attacks that might transpire as a result of the code being made public. We have been conducting direct outreach to our customers since Jan. 23rd to reiterate that, in addition to applying all relevant patches that have been released, we’ve also counseled customers to ensure that pcAnywhere version 12.5 is installed, and follow general security best practices.
If customers are unable to adhere to this guidance and have not installed the latest version with current patches, we recommend that they contact pcanywhere@symantec.com for additional assistance.
On Monday, January 23, 2012, Symantec released a patch that eliminates known vulnerabilities affecting customers using pcAnywhere 12.5. On Friday, January 27, 2012, Symantec released a patch that eliminates known vulnerabilities affecting customers using pcAnywhere 12.0 and pcAnywhere 12.1.