Norton IS 2007 & Trojan.Vundo

[jandjhofmann]

I upgraded to Norton Internet Security 2007 (NIS) this past weekend after my subscription to NIS 2006 expired. Just prior to upgrading I noticed that whenever I connected to the Internet the explorer.exe process on my Windows XP Pro based system would spike at 99% CPU utilization. I figured I had a virus so I upgraded NIS, ran LiveUpdate, and did a full system scan twice. NIS found some minor spyware infections but nothing major. after hours of investigating this problem on the Internet I found that I was infected with the Trojan.Vundo virus. The virus was successfully discovered & removed by a FREE executable I found on the internet (VundoFix.exe). I sent an e-mail to Symantec tech support and received the following response:

"I gather from your message that your system was infected and Norton didn't fount the threat.

James, please note that these are the following reasons due to which Norton AntiVirus will not detect virus:

1. It is a new (undocumented) virus

2. Your virus definitions are out-of-date

3. NAV has become corrupt

4. Your virus definitions have become corrupted

5. Another application is conflicting with NAV

6. Another anti-virus program is also running at the same time as Norton AntiVirus is

7. System resources competition

8. The file is encrypted.

9. Partial, incomplete, or corrupted viruses that are unable to function.

Also I suggest you to perform LiveUpdate on regular basis to ensure that you have the latest updates to be protected against threats. You can refer to the document provided below for assistance in performing LiveUpdate:

> Open on Norton AntiVirus.
> Click LiveUpdate under Quick Tasks.
If you require further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

Symantec Authorized Technical Support"

I feel the response from Symantec was just a bunch of excuses and didn't get to the heart of the matter which is: why did a free application on the internet find and remove the virus and an application I purchased for about $50 - $60 USD not find it after scanning for problems twice ?

I was wondering if anyone else on this forum has had a similar problem with NIS ? Are the other programs out there that are better at protecting my system ?

Thanks - Jim

 

[OrthoDocSoft]

I know what you mean. Had an "infostealer" alert pop up on my Norton Internet security (insecurity?) as well. I thought something like Webroot's Spy Sweeper would do the trick; bought it and it did very little. Then I found this article and started going through it:

http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction

It is excellent, IMHO.

The best thing I did (which got rid of the infostealer alerts) was to run Panda Software's Active Scan (

http://www.pandasoftware.com),

but I also downloaded and ran the other freeware programs as suggested in the article. I stopped just short of running any anti-trojan products, since I stopped getting the warnings, but you probably would want to run some of these.

I, too, thought Norton should be superlative and "one stop shopping." I, now, will always use a birage of antivirus/antispyware software. I have Norton IS, Panda Active Scan, Webroot's Spysweeper, Lavasoft's AdawareSE and Spybot Search and Destroy.

Ortho