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Symantec Support Gone Rogue?
DigitalDame2 writes "PCMag Security Analyst Neil Rubenking has always praised Symantec's tech support. Lately, though, a number of readers have reported problems with chat support, so he investigated. Rubenking was trying to install Norton 360 version 3.0 on a malware-infested system when the computer crashed with a blue screen error. He connected with Symantec tech support and was told that they could fix the problem, but for a fee of $100! (Here is the transcript and screen-captures of the chat.) Even more, Symantec support suggested that he use a malware-removal tool that wasn't even made by Symantec."
They just went rouge?
He should have made the phone call and dealt with the Indian accent.
At least they had him use a decent anti-malware program. I generally find symantec products to be more of a virus than most viruses, that crap is hard to get rid of once it's installed and doesn't detect much of anything.
Maybe the malware infected machine had a hacked hosts file and he was connecting to some site in Russia? Or some other way of redirecting the supposed chat session with "Symantec Support"
As a real-time scanner, it is pretty good, and the corporate editions are pretty light weight, but has symantec ever been useful as a repair tool?
The support tech sounds like he did right, despite the non-corporate policy of eating symantec's own dog food.
Anyone cleaning an already infected machine would start with malwarebytes or combofix before wasting their time with symantec's stuff.
Sounds like the tech who was helping him knew this.
Generally speaking, unless you are an expert at killing malware, the LAST thing you want to try to do is install new antivirus software on an already infected machine.
Seriously, its completely idiotic and a waste of time.
The computer was simply too infected to allow the Symantec software to install. This is not an abnormal occurrence. Symantec offered to have an engineer remotely access the system and clean it, which naturally costs money, since you're paying for a person's time to fix your computer, in addition to the license for the software. Symantec can't guarantee that your Windows installation isn't too badly damaged to allow their software to install, and they just offered an alternative to telling him to take the computer to be serviced. This is a non-story.
I have had bad experiences with symantec support as well - they are very condescending and feel "too big to fail". Though I must admit - I dislike the whole concept here.... wouldn't it be a sweet deal to release malware and then provide a solution? Sometimes I wonder.... I mean antivirus the products are crap from every vendor. No one seems to do it right and the programs are built, especially symantec, to a standard that assumes the user is as brain dead as a door nail while saps system performance. Vista UAC, on the whole, is better designed. There is no stronger argument to use Linux.
Sorry, too much WoW.
There are scads of free options.
Try a linux alternative
Like this.
Or this.
Hell even an online scan may work well enough, http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Sorry, too much Left 4 Dead.
As a general rule when working with badly infected systems, the only guaranteed way to get it working again is to nuke and reinstall. Symantec is, I suppose, doing them a service by trying to help, but if a system is too far gone to allow Norton to be installed, it's most likely too far gone to save. Every client of mine that insists on going through the motions about not wanting to pay for a data backup or to get all of their programs reinstalled signs a waiver that states that I offer no warranty on the system or any of the work done on it. Surprisingly enough, most of the systems I get that are so bad that they require a nuke and reinstall were running Norton to begin with.
Honestly, I've never, EVER found them to be worth a grain of salt. When installing a product (Norton 2005 I think), it refused to activate itself. So I looked on the website. I tried everything they offered, like their "Complete Removal Tool" to do a clean reinstall, and nothing worked. So I finally broke down and went onto their online support. Their advice was EXACTLY the same as the advice I'd already been given by their website. They (plural!) couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that I had already tried everything.
I had to reinstall Windows twice to get it to work.
People still get malware, and still use Symantec products?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Symantec did just outsource a bunch of their support. I wonder if they'll reconsider the move.
There is a major difference between offering defect support for software and offering services surrounding the software. Let's review the order of events here:
1) Customer is unable to install product on test environment. Receives BSOD.
2) Customer contacts Symantec requesting defect support. Per customer the product is not functioning as described on a test system.
3) Symantec's front-line support team misinterprets the customer's request for defect support. Instead, they believe the customer wants the system cleaned, regardless of whether a Symantec product is used or not. As a result, Symantec services are offered for an additional fee of $100.
4) End-result is one unhappy customer, and a heavily biased article criticizing Symantec support.
What should have happened is anybody's interpretation. But, during #3, at a minimum, the issue should have been escalated to the next level where an actual support engineer discusses a bit further with the customer to try to understand if they a defect with the product, something unique to customer environment, etc.
Conclusion: Front-line reps at Symantec need more training. Customer needs to work on communication skills to be clear when contacting defect support. Failure to communicate.
I had to help someone clean up a popup problem and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (which is free) eliminated not only the adware but also identified and removed a trojan that an up-to-date Symantec Anti-Virus didn't even find. I was really surprised.
Damn Commies...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
this is just more evidence that anti-virus/malware products need to be on bootable read-only CDs that can connect to the internet, obtain current definition files, and scan and clean a computer before actually installing any realtime protection software.
- James
inux isn't popular because it's a fad. It's popular because it's a successful alternative that doesn't allow remote control by the bad guys.
Neither does Windows if you have a clue. The problem is, most users don't.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Malwarebytes has a trial offer that is free, but the full product is not...
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
As much as I dislike Symantec and their products, they had no obligation to fix pre-existing problems on an infested system.
This.
I've used Symantec products for years, and never had a problem.
People have to use their machines responsibly. This is like driving your new car down a gravel road, and then blaming the people who paninted it when it ends up scratched.
Punch drunk, and without bail.
well the mafioso types that run these malware botnets are usually russian, and probably would have no qualms about killing people, so it's quite possible.
Put an unpatched Linux from 2001 on the net and you'll highly likely achieve the same result. Does that mean Linux is an open sore waiting for the pus to come out? No. You can't expect to hold up an 8 year old version of an OS as the paragon of its security.
That said, no machine should be exposed directly to the internet anyway. A firewall should always be in play whether it's a standalone router or a Smoothwall/whatever install.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Do you know why they call it Norton 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
Technically you are still walking the same direction. They just got you so turned around you don't know where you are going.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
A hardware firewall will not stop outbound traffic if you don't have some kind of a IDS installed.
A really decent hardware firewall can do anti-virus, IDS and content filtering before it even reaches the PCs on your internal network. Problem is not everybody can properly configure the firewall or even understand exactly how it works. Which is why alot of security companies are making a killing on "security appliance" which for a yearly fee they will manage the device for you. They will push the updates to your hardware firewall and basically baby sit it for you. Only thing they will not help you with is ISP problems.
son, you ain't from around these parts, are you? that's an xbox 360 meme
Symantec's products have declined in quality to the point in which we do not recommend it to our clients, in fact, we actively discourage it. Endpoint protection, even the corporate version, is heavy and almost useless for the detection of any kind of malware. The management software is so bad, that when left unchecked, it will fill a server with logs sometimes generating as much as a gigabyte per manged PC in a month.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
I'm considering applying for a job at Symantec, whenever anyone calls in with a malware problem I'll direct them to ubuntu.com.
No matter how I tried to explain that, the only answer I received was that "Windows can only be installed on one computer per license".
I ended up getting soo frustrated that I swore at the guy on the phone and hung up on him before returning the copy of Windows and just going with Ubuntu instead.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Symantec Support claims $99.00 for cleaning up the toolbar that was actually installed as part of regular update. Daylight robbery?
http://safeweb.norton.com/reviews/18936
I wanted to remove a Symantec program and install a new upgraded program, which is from the Symantec line, but because I didn't have tech support anymore for the old program they wouldn't help me. A little service doesn't go a long way. I believe that their support has been rogue for sometime, but maybe the amount of problems has increased or the fan boys have stopped burying the problem
While true, a hardware firewall will stop inbound traffic, and that is what most "unattended" compromises rely on - the ability to hit a service on the unpatched computer directly. If you basically just plugged it in and started updating with a hardware firewall, there is (virtually) no vector for attack in the first place.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I mean, viruses used to be a problem way back when people installed Windows natively on their machines. But today, you can simply run your Windows inside of a virtual machine you backup regularly. If you notice some odd behaviour you can simply roll back to the old version. Or you can roll back daily.
My Name is M'tumbo Botswana, I am the spyware removal expert of Nigeria. Please to transfer sum of 100,000 US dOllar to bank account written below. We value your customership very very much. Thank you
Hello,
/MBR switch, SYS and so forth).
I have worked in the antivirus industry for about nine years (with about another nine years doing networking things), starting with the technical support department at McAfee Associates (now McAfee). Even in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were times when we had to run other companies tools to assist in detection or removal of computer viruses, or to obtain a sample. Peter Norton Computing's Norton Utilities Disk Editor and Sybex' Teledisk come to mind, as do various Microsoft MS-DOS utilities (DEBUG, FDISK with its then-undocumented
A few years ago, I re-entered the anti-virus (or anti-malware, as classic replicating infectors account for a few percentage points of what is seen these days) industry and it was and is not uncommon for our technical support people to help people remove rootkits, various Trojan downloaders and other pieces of malware that are either not detected or detected and not properly removed by our own software. One thing we make sure of is to get copies of any objects like files and registry entries so that our virus lab can add detection (or removal) in a new virus signature database update.
Sometimes, customers do get upset when they are sent download links to a third-party tool to assist with removal because they assume that one tool will protect them against all threats, however, with the shear number of unique pieces of malware being released every day by organized criminal businesses no one tool is going to prevent, detect or remove every piece of malware, every time, even with the best heuristics and generic detection technology. This is something which all anti-virus companies have to deal with, not just Symantec. On the plus side, we just started deploying our own supplmentary tools to detect and remove threats that the mainline products do not, and that will help wean our dependence on third-party programs.
That is pretty much how things stand with recommendations for the use of third party software by anti-virus vendors, now.
As far as selling support goes, well, fifteen years ago it was not unusual to sell support contracts or service level agreements to enterprise customers offering them priority round-the-clock access to technical support. Free, unlimited support via telephone, fax, electronic means (email, BBS, CompuServe, et cetera) was provided, but it was on a first-in-line basis. That started to change in the mid-1990s when the anti-virus companies started to generate substantial revenue and get taken over by professional business people instead of engineers, but when a company becomes publicly-traded, it switches from being technology-focused to being focused on maximizing stakeholder value every quarter, and that means looking at things which cost money like having to pay salaries for support engineers and turn them into things which generate revenue. At that point, I was leaving the company, and really did not care what they did with my department. I have been told by a couple of people who stayed on after me said that Bill Larsen used to give motivational speeches like, "I would fire you if I could." and "I don't understand why we have to provide support to customers, after all, we've got their money." to the support staff, but even if they are not actual quotations, they certainly are reflective of the culture at that time. At a publicly-traded company, loyalty to the shareholders usually takes precedence over loyalty to the customers. Some companies figure out that customer loyalty actually translates into more value for shareholders in the form of increased revenue from license renewals, customers who purchase new products or services from the company, et cetera, but it seems there are plenty who are unable to make this evolutionary leap in understanding how their business works.
These days, my current employer does provide free, unlimited technical support via phone and electonic means and
Dexter is a good dog.
Norton disk doctor and norton speedisk where both fantastic compared to the Microsoft alternatives under DOS 5/6/6.22 (my era) speedisk used to do a real, thorough defrag of the drive, sure it took a hell of a long time but it totally sped things up, especially logging disks in ztree.
Over the years it became worse and worse, I think the first one or two windows revisions were somewhat decent but it's been a good 6 or 7 years since I'd ever even consider installing their stuff on my machine anymore.
FWIW I found a tool called "Ultimate defrag" it's got a ghastly interface and looks like it was designed by someone with 'my first developement toolkit' but the underlying defrag technology it uses is actually pretty damn slick, it really will do the old school Norton style "full with file re-order" and actually does move what you want, where you want it, scope it out.
(No I don't work for them)
Michael Jackson can turn 360 degrees and walk away. Called the Moonwalk.
So it was YOU working for Symantec. I didn't think they would use three seperate names, but I guess in a shrinking we all have to do a Lily Tomlin sometimes.
This is pretty typical of PC Mag of late. No research done, slap-dash work. Perhaps they too are outsourcing their work.
Not that I love Norton or their parent company Symantec mind you.
Having a rep suggest using another product that is owned by the same company isn't so strange.
1) common sense
2) http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
3) http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
Boy, sucks to be running Windows!
Norton disk doctor and norton speedisk where both fantastic compared to the Microsoft alternatives under DOS 5/6/6.22 (my era) speedisk used to do a real, thorough defrag of the drive, sure it took a hell of a long time but it totally sped things up, especially logging disks in ztree.
Over the years it became worse and worse, I think the first one or two windows revisions were somewhat decent but it's been a good 6 or 7 years since I'd ever even consider installing their stuff on my machine anymore.
Yes, once upon a time Norton products were good. Now they are an expensive nuisance which 'nannies' every action you perform on a PC and has a hideous impact on performance.
I widely recommend AntiVir (http://www.free-av.com) as a far more lightweight alternative. I've never bought the full package with malware stuff and so on; I would be curious to hear the experiences of anyone who has.
Obviously an anti-virus is not enough nowadays, the development of malware has become commercially attractive - even Sony tried it.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Moral of the story, avoid norton like the plague. A moral many of us learned in the 90's.
And walk straight into it.
It is called Norton 360 because they've got all angles covered.
360 degs? So you don't actually turn away at all...
That is the most awesome way to walk away from someone, specially if you also give them the finger. It would make being fired something to look forward to.
All this discussion anout whether symantecs products are any good is a bit null and void.
When we used to sell their products our customers would be sent letters telling them to contact symantec to renew. (These were enterprise customers) Therefore cutting us out of the picture even though we had done all the work in getting these customers using Symantec.
Since then we have never sold any of their products.
(We didnt lose the customers because they passed the letters onto us without opening them)
The exact same thing happened to a friend that used to sell their products to.
That is the main reason we dont sell their products anymore!
Because you always need a smart fox!
so it's probably a DNS redirect or host file trick to have the poor sap chat with someone else instead of the actual Norton team
This is about as geometrically-accurate as when people say something is 360-degrees different. 360 degrees is effectively zero. It's 180 degrees, people. :)
I give my usual spiel that the best protection is not to pay money for anything, it's hard to say it's worth it (Slowing down your system, possibly causing more crashes and program compatibility issues, and then only catching perhaps 90% of threats). Open-source or freeware tools will do just fine to actually scan and heal threats. Largely it's the users actions that are the initial problem. I then offer my time, for free, to teach some safe practices.
You can't just punch in your credit card number and expect adequate protection.
Mark my words, there are lots of botnet'd windows boxes that have full-paid anti-virus software on them running just fine. My parents had one of them. (problem was identified in the logs of their linux firewall). The solution was to wipe it, given them firefox with some add-ons and clam-av. Zero issues since.
If your machine is properly patched your very unlikely to be taken over by a worm attack. Following that, with the right software, your unlikely to be hijacked in your browser and then infected. With the right ISP you won't have spam and e-mail threats. It's down to how the user operates, and discouraging them from skipping virus scanning that keygen.exe when downloading warez. Largely it's browsing that's the problem. Firefox plus some add-ons, and a little bit of user coaching.
I really wonder in who's interests it is to keep users dumbed down on security matters. Which in todays world has become as important as locks and alarms on houses cars and businesses. It's protection of critical infrastructure.
Why pay a exorbitant monthly subscription for a security guard to stand outside your house, because your house is equipped with vulnerable locks and the occupants are poorly trained at keeping the doors closed when they go out?
In hindsight I should have modded as redundant the mandatory:
Install Linux
which is inexplicably modded +5 something.
If 90% of the world ran one Linux distribution we would still have a thriving ecosystem viruses, trojans (albeit on a lesser scale). Good design, transparency and rapid patching in OSS only goes so far, it's not magic immunity. There is also a fairly constant amount of problems between the keyboard and chair - now that will not go away. Windows is the most common, therefore the most attacked... is the statement that raises hackles for some. However it is the truth. In much the same way having millions of genetically identical crops/livestock in unnatural concentrations provides for massive outbreaks of everything from blight to foot and mouth disease. Likewise millions of humans living in close proximity results in plagues - the human immune system was not built for this. And so our information technology infrastructure suffers the same fundamental laws of nature, you have one monoculture of identical entities you invite pandemic infection.
So how do we live in 20-30 million person cities, and don't all get wiped out in two weeks by ebola? We have sanitation: we all get taught how to cover our mouths when we cough, cook food properly and wash our hands after visiting the lavatory etc etc and we have some sanitary measures to back it up, ie chemicals that can clense pathogens.
User education is the key. The first thing we can teach is to stay the hell away from clearly rogue companies. We can also stop beating redundant very tired drums.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
NOD32 is great as well. Really low performance impact and a very accurate heuristics engine. Highly recommended.
Amnesty International
I do hope you meant turning 180 degrees because if you turned 360 degrees you'll end up seeing Norton 360 again.
Symantec doesn't need to make sure their software runs on a compromised system, but it should be expected that their tech support at least try fixing the problem with the tools available before escalating.
The tool to fix the problem was on the CD and the people on the forums were competent enough to direct the customer onto the tool.
The behaviour shown by the chat support is equivalent to a car mechanic who can't be bothered figuring out what the problem with a car is and declaring the whole engine needs to be replaced before even checking if it is something as simple as a busted spark plug.
Fine then, it's a 720 degree difference.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
My preference for Symantec came to an end when I had to rebuilt a banks' worldwide AV solution because of the certificate system in SAV Corporate.
When these become corrupted (the 'how' was never explained), your 'primary' AV server stops talking to all the sub-servers properly - and for good measure it copies the corrupted certificates to them too so that you can't even restore the primary from an image; the now-corrupted certs on the sub-servers will copy back immediately (and I didn't fancy doing 20 seperate restores).
I contacted Symantec to ask how to disable this 'feature', pointing out that in our internal network there was no need for secure comms between AV servers - and they replied that it had been added after demands from a client and that it was an 'enforced feature' (=lump it). Reading between the lines, I took that to mean that they'd been asked for an extra level of security and rushed it through without considering that some (most?) clients wouldn't need this and might want to disable it. So I was left with the job of rebuilding the SAVCorp setup for a third time, with no guarantee that this wouldn't happen again. It's a bit like MS's Exchange-powershell being wonderful for 10,000 user sites, but not much cop if your sites are all 100 users (which happens to be their main userbase, but that's another story....)
The biggest laugh has to be Vista - MS announced *years* ago that they'd be locking down the kernel (and quite rightly), but it wasn't until Vista was almost out that Symantec and some others came out of the woodwork stamping about how this was going to ruin their tea party...never thought I'd see a major AV player complaining that Windows was *too secure*....
Hah... actually, he walks away from you while still looking at you.
I shudder to think we could be starting a meme here, a la Chuck Norris...
I don't moderate anymore. Karma penalty for 90% fair mods? Can I mod that unfair?
I generally find turning 180 degrees a more successful option for then walking away...
If the outsourced "technicians" refuse to use Symantec software to fix a problem, maybe it's because the software doesn't work all that well.
I have a friend who works as a Symantec contractor who has taken the company line and the hook and sinker too. He really believes the software is great.
I always advise my customers to avoid all Symantec branded products. Their software hasn't been great since my computer ran windows 3.11.
They're using their grammar skills there.
This (a moron that doesn't understand that 360 degrees is a full circle and thus leaves you facing the same direction you started), is funny?
Triying to install an anti-virus in an infected system is like trying to cure a wound in a necrosed leg; an anti-virus PREVENTS infection and removes it, but if the virus is on the system, the only solution is nuke.
Take that Chuck Norris!
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Nah. It's the amount of degrees that Peter Norton turned in his grave, when it was developed.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
JKDefrag also is not too shabby.
Do you know why they call it Norton 360?
Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
Maybe it should be called Norton 180?
After a session on tech support w/ Symantec (30 mins, no progress from them at all) I removed their products from my computers and installed Clamwin.
Back when Norton meant something in the PC world he should be embarrassed that they are still using his name.
Look elsewhere for AV on your computers.
Peter may be getting on in years, but he's not (yet) dead.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
F-Secure Rescue
you had me at #!
Was using rm -fr on an NTFS partition, while booted into Linux.
you had me at #!
right here
you had me at #!
Ok, in his bed at night then. But not degrees. Times!
Sorry Peter.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
VirtualBox snapshots are ideal for this purpose. The host can be OS X, Linux, Solaris...
The only thing better than this is not running Windows at all. ;)
This can't help in the case of malware you don't know about - so naturally you would still avoid using any valuable logins or data on Windows (in particular never do your online banking on it). But everyone knows that by now, right?
you had me at #!
No. But you expecting him to really not know this, and not knowing the meme behind it, is. :D
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I found another one called JKDefrag that also works very well.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Computer hardware gets cheaper every year. For some users, it's easier to *not* learn security, to *not* scrub clean a pwned box. For plenty of non-geeks, time and money make it easier to buy a new box every other year. Rinse, lather, repeat.
I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, Mister President, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million people
Symantec tried to steel my customers!
Last time I tried to contact them they just wanted to iron me.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
He's just pining for the fjords of Norway!
You must be kidding, no company would ever charge for out of band support.
*yawn*
---- Booth was a patriot ----
or http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:360_moonwalk.gif
I shudder to think we could be starting a meme here,
It already is (or was) a meme. I think it originated on 4chan. A long time ago. Makes sense that Slashdot is just now seeing it, seeing as how Slashdot usually is about a year behind the times as far as these things go.
For Mac? I'm a big believer in going open source now, and am running a MacBook. I'd like to find out if anyone can recommend a good open source AV platform for Mac, and for Windows.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Whats the big deal? Look at the pictures - the last one has the VMWare tools icon showing in the taskbar. Funny stuff.
How does this get modded +5 informative?
There are scads of free options.
Try a linux alternative
NoScript says: "Do not want".
Try a linux alternative
Like this.
Dormant (see: Distrowatch).
Or this.
$$, intended for corporate use, but thanks for the link, It might be worth the money in my repair business (I currently move the disks to a windows machine and scan from there if I can't clean in place).
Hell even an online scan may work well enough, http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
This might actually work, though I haven't tested it myself. Probably not as good as Malwarebytes, though.
They don't care if you boot Linux. They'll run the viral script in Wine. Loki Entertainment 2012 baby!
Given what happened by using the tool that was, this probably has merit. :P
How exactly do you pay $100 for this support? Do you actually give out your credit card number on a system you *know* with certainty is infected with all manner of malware?
That just seems highly irresponsible -- encouraging/allowing customers to do so seems even worse.
360 degrees is full turn; don't you mean 180 genius?
And how do they get to run Wine in the first place? ;)
Ok, via the exploit.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I'm surprised how this post isn't pointing how how a "Security Analyst" is trying to remove malware when the only "safe" way to remove malware is to either restore a backup from a previous time or to wipe the computer clean and start from scratch.
Agreed. NOD32 is definitely the way to go. The top performer at Virus Bulletin's annual tests, doesn't contain bloatware, completes the same tasks as Norton's AV ... but efficiently, and costs $20 a year. You can't go wrong with it. After being fed up with Norton's for years, my last straw was the pricing and speed of Norton 360. I switched to NOD32 then and haven't looked back.
Do you know why they call it Norton 360?
Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
FUCKTARD - if you turn around 360 degrees you will be right back where you started.
There is no one program that will fix/repair/prevent all anti{virus,spyware} issues. There is no silver bullet. If you get an infected computer in a repair shop: you pull the drive, put in a clean PC and run SEVERAL av programs until nothing is found. then you hope its clean.
move along, nothing to see here.
Chuck Norris can turn 360 degrees and face the other direction.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
If you turn 180 degrees, you will be right where you started too.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
I've worked for a couple different small, family owned computer repair shops over the past decade. All the way up until 2002 it was possible in many cases to remove all virus infections from a computer using one anti-virus scanner. Also, it was typically possible to remove all spyware infections using Ad-Aware SE Personal. Very rarely I would come across a badly infected system, in which case we would back up files, format & reinstall Windows and restore the data.
Since the release of Windows XP things have gotten a whole lot more complicated when it comes to virus and spyware cleanup. One virus program doesn't cut the mustard anymore. And while Microsoft seems to have the idea that Vista and 7 are significantly more resistant to infections, the truth of the matter is it is MUCH harder to undo changes to the Vista system caused by the infections it was supposed to block. And they DO get in - they may not cause as much widespread damage as they could in an XP system, but they DO cause damage to the OS.
So here's a sum up of a typical cleanup we would perform:
1) Use Norton Ghost Corporate to copy the entire hard-drive of an infected system to a compressed series of files on our "Ghost server" (this had the added bonus of checking the hard-drive for potential damage)
2) Use the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (http://ubcd4win.com) to boot into a BartPE Windows environment and run the following virus scans typically in this order: Antivir Personal, Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool, Dr. Web CureIt Virus Scanner, AVG Free Antivirus - any systems that showed more than 50 virus infected files during the Antivir Personal scan would typically be formatted have Windows reinstalled, data restored if necessary due the severity of the infection. We would also format if we detected a rootkit infection - there was too much risk of missing other rootkit infections that could not be detected with these programs. We also scanned with A-Squared Free Anti-Spyware in this phase.
3) In this phase it was necessary to boot into safe mode, disable system restore for XP systems (this is a bad idea for Vista systems due to the difficulty in repairing their issues), uninstall bogus software from Add/Remove Programs, check services.msc for rogue programs and disable them, clear temp directories, install and run HijackThis to find any rogue programs set to run on start up and delete them, and also to run additional spyware removal scans with Adaware SE Personal, Spybot: Search & Destroy, and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (the program Symantec used in the article).
4) By now it was usually safe to boot into normal mode and assess the damage - the most common issue was Windows Updates would be no longer functional - which required a number of steps to fix. Dial-A-Fix saved us a lot of time, but it still took a while to undo this damage. In certain cases there were still infections that had been missed, so we usually installed a fresh copy of Kaspersky Antivirus trial, updated the virus definitions and performed a full scan. We also updated Spybot, Adaware and Malwarebytes and ran those again. If these programs detected infections, we would run them again - if they continued to detect infections then we would update our virus scanning tools and check the system again. If we were unable to clear up the infection by this time we would usually go ahead and format the system.
There could still be other issues with Windows caused by the infection, such as missing drives in My Computer, or missing menu items in the Start Menu. System and User permissions might have been altered, key system files might have been replaced, and there might still be rogue software installed that could not be removed in safe mode. We also had to make sure all devices were working and had their proper drivers installed, and that there were no massive security holes such as a disabled firewall, that service packs and security updates had been installed, and so forth.
We did all of the above for a fl
I wonder what would happen if we took a Norton 360 box and strapped buttered toast to one side, and duct taped a cat to the other side?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Uh... turning 360 degrees will result in you walking towards whatever you were looking at before!
First of all, let's not resort to namecalling here.
Neil tested the the software on 12 different infected systems, and found that one resulted in an endless-loop problem requiring support, whereas it installed and worked properly on the others. That right there alone is a better than 90% success rate for Norton. That's hard data. What hard data have you come up with after your extensive testing of av products, Killall? Yeah, I didn't think so.
But this isn't a story about the program's performance (that's in the linked product review). This is a story about the failure of support and a support staff's overzealous attempts to make an extra buck from a desperate customer.
No one expects any free or retail software to clean out all problems all the time, but when you pay for a retail software package, a modicum of free support is part of the deal after a failure to install. Contrary to the tech's assertions, the purchase price include support to install a retail product. If the tech doesn't want to go through the hassle of installing AV products on infected systems via telephone or remote, then the tech should search for another line of work. (And I know - I did this sort of support for 5 years.)
If there were truly no free solutions (and it turns out there were) AT A MINIMUM the tech support person should have offered the option to refund the customer's money after establishing the software wouldn't install. That's not great "tech support," but it at least fair "customer support."
There's also the matter of the tech offering paid services rather than directing the user to free services offered by Norton themselves for just this sort of problem. Offering paid support services for free products is an established business model (SugarCRM anyone?), but ignoring free solutions offered by your own company in order to make an extra buck with a paid solution for a retail product is simply disrespectful to the customer, as is not offering a refund, and Neil called 'em on it. What is your problem with that again?
And finally, there's the little act of plagiarism where the tech represented a third-party free antispyware cleaner as a Symantec product. Also disrepectful, especially when Symantec has its own free tools that are supposed to do the job too. And again, Neil called 'em on it.
Most product reviewers just rewrite press releases without any real testing these days - Neil is one of the few that really tests these things out on banks of infected systems, and then goes through the trouble of pretending to be a normal customer going through tech support to see how it works. There just aren't that many tech reviewers doing that anymore. Personally, I can only think of one other, and modesty prohibits me from mentioning who.
So let's direct that anger to Symantec rather than the reviewer, eh? Symantec dropped the ball on this one.
If you turned 360 degrees you would be walking right back into Norton.
Do you know why they call it Norton 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
Did you pass High School Geometry?
No data, no cry
People are under this false impression that they can just go buy a program that will retroactively fix any and all virii and spyware. This is a lot of times impossible. Once a virus or spyware truly infiltrates your system you most likely have to reload Windows and then load antivirus/spyware protection from scratch (like they should have all along). The Windows registry is craptastic, but it exists and as long as it does many virii and spyware will be able to prevent repair software from installing successfully. You can't really expect Symantec to log into your computer remotely and hack your registry enough to install their software and then remove all of the bad stuff for you for free. End users are idiots.
And then there was E
Well, I do have to say I'm disappointed, since I had the same problem with Norton: once with my PC -- where I don't mind paying $100 since my stuff's so valuable, and then with a friend who had a virus, where he just wanted the thing working. With my friend's PC, the virus stopped Norton from even using their logmein123 program. And we were kept on hold for hours -- literally. I expected more from Norton (sigh).
instead get a copy of VMware workstation (free) and test any new installation on it before apply to your regular Windows box. Have a snapshot of the VM before installing and if it breaks, revert back to the snapshot. If it doesn't break (you may want to run it a few days) then it's probably safe to install on the main copy of Windows.
One other thing... STOP DOWNLOADING PORN. That will solve 99.9% of your problems.
Symantec's tech support is not that great but at least some of there people are in America and speak English. However Symantec software is one of the worst in the industry and they have been going down hill for several years now. I put MalwareBytes on machines that were running Symantec and found that more than 50% of them had multiple serious virus infections. 10% of these computers had Bots infecting them, and Symantec virus software with latest updates didn't have a clue this crap was there. Symantec should be held accountable for their crappy software by the tech community so they can fix their problems or close up shop.
Do you know why they call it Norton 360?
Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
Wouldn't that be walking back towards it again?
Hi, I'm Lenny Alugas, and I head up Symantec's Norton Support organization. Upon learning of PC Magazine's recent experience with our support organization, I have made it my personal mission to ensure these types of incidents are never repeated. Neil Rubenking's experience with Symantec Support, while thankfully not the norm, is simply not acceptable. I want to emphasize our commitment to providing our customers with a variety of Support tools and options to resolve their issues - most available at no cost. We train our agents to be knowledgeable, informative and helpful in fixing issues quickly, easily and with Symantec's own products. The agents' failure to adequately inform Neil of a free self-fix option and use a non-Symantec product were serious errors in judgment. To make sure we don't see any repeated issues we are implementing stricter agent guidelines and enhancing our training curriculum regarding free options as well as making changes to our Web site so your free options are more clearly presented. Please be assured it is not our intention to sell you services if a free option is appropriate and if you are comfortable with a do-it-yourself fix. My team and I will be working hard to win back your trust and endorsement. Thank you, Lenny