Warning: Security Products Can Backfire

An article from Fortune reports on a scary scenario, whereby security software itself becomes the entree for a cyber-breach. This happened with an entire suite of of Symantec antivirus products, according to a security researcher at Google. The virus in that case was a particularly insidious type that doesn’t require clicking a link or even opening an email to become active. Following out the links in this post, one learns that Symantec did address the issue and has credited the researcher who discovered it, but the company had allowed the potential breach to persist for a long time. Symantic products are far from the only ones that have had problems. The same researcher is said to have discovered dangerous vulnerabilities in products from other security companies, including FireEye, Kaspersky, Intel Security (McAfee) and Trend Micro.