It sounds at first to be a worse case scenario: a well known maker of anti-virus software now has to deal with the release of the source code for two of its products. This happened to Symantec this week, according to The Register, but in this particular case there doesn't appear to be a huge cause for alarm.
The hacker group The Lords of Dharmaraja, based in India, claimed earlier this week that they had gotten a hold of the anti-virus source code via an attack on Indian government servers. However, Symantec claims in a statement that the source code that the group has secured isn't all that it is cracked up to be:
Symantec can confirm that a segment of its source code used in two of our older enterprise products has been accessed, one of which has been discontinued. The code involved is four and five years old. This does not affect Symantec's Norton products for our consumer customers.
The company added that while the source code was not taken from Symatec's servers, it added that it is investigating the matter. Symantec also said it " ... is working to develop remediation process to ensure long-term protection for our customers' information. We will communicate that process once the steps have been finalized."
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