Symantec blocks 'malicious' AOL

By Steve Malone

Posted on 20 Mar 2006 at 10:52

Security firm Symantec was rushing to reassure irate AOL users at the end of last week after the Intrusion Detection signature that was loaded with the latest update prevented people from logging into the ISP.

The problem arose with the regular 15 March LiveUpdate and affected both Norton AntiVirus itself or, as a part of Norton SystemWorks, Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall.

As a result, traffic coming from AOL was deemed to be malicious and prevented users from connecting to the service. The bug was eventually traced to the area that prevents hackers from entering a computer through open ports.

Symantec says it fixed the bug within seven hours but was forced to publish a fix for people who continued to have trouble. If anyone cannot get onto the Internet because AOL is their ISP, Symantec recommends disabling the security software to fetch the patch.

This is the second time in less than a week in which an anti-virus company has been left with egg on its face following a routine update of signatures. Last week, an update by Symantec rival McAfee caused problems. The company's antivirus software found itself quarantining such dangerous pieces of malware as Microsoft Excel and the Macromedia Flash Player.