Symantec confirms breached data was leaked

Symantec has confirmed that source code for its Norton anti-virus was leaked.

As reported by SC Magazine, the protection software vendor was forced right into a blackmail battle with a hacker who claimed to have the the source code to Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton Utilities, Norton GoBack and pcAnywhere. The hacker ‘YamaTough' attempted to get $50,000 from Symantec, threatening to release the source code (which Symantec confirmed was six years old).

In an announcement, Symantec confirmed that the source code was authentic. It said: “The exposure of this code poses no increased risk to Norton or Symantec customers. This code is a part of the unique cache of code for 2006 versions of the goods that Anonymous has claimed to own during the last few weeks.

“We anticipated that the code can be posted. As we've got already stated publicly, our analysis shows that as a result of age of the exposed code and the truth that it's only a small subset of your entire code, Symantec anti-virus or endpoint security consumer and business customers â€" including anyone running Norton products â€" shouldn't be in any increased danger of cyber attacks as a consequence of this incident.

“We also anticipate that Anonymous will post the remainder of the code they've claimed to have of their possession. Up to now, they've posted a small section of the source code for the 2006 versions of Norton Utilities, pcAnywhere, and Norton Antivirus. We also anticipate that one day, they are going to post the code for the 2006 versions of Norton Internet Security. Again, the code that have been exposed is so old that current out-of-the-box security settings will suffice against any possible threats that may materialize by reason of this incident.”

According to a report from The Hacker News, the code was posted at the Pirate Bay with a download size of one.07GB. The file has a note that asks for the liberation of the LulzSec members that were arrested, minus Hector Monsegur, aka 'Sabu'.