It has been brought to our attention that Symantec, the makers of PCAnywhere, told their customers Thursday not to use pcAnywhere until Symantec can secure the PC remote control software following the theft of its underlying code by hacktivists.
This issue does not affect normal shared web hosting customers, but rather dedicated or cloud server customers who may be using pcAnywhere. Most EPhost dedicated or cloud server customers use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) for remote PC access instead of pcAnywhere. None-the-less, we felt it was prudent to post this important news just in case you are using PCAnywhere on your server.
"At this time, Symantec recommends disabling pcAnywhere until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks," Symantec said in the advisory.
Symantec found that the code came from 2006 versions of Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks and pcAnywhere. Only the latter software contained vulnerabilities exposed as a result of the theft.
If your dedicated server has pcAnywhere installed and you are currently using it to manage the server, then you will need to remove or disable the software until further updates can fix the vulnerability.
Related Articles from Google News
http://gcn.com/articles/2012/01/26/ecg-disabling-remote-pc-software.aspx
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/symantec-norton-antivirus-Dharmaraja-Anonymous,14509.html
http://www.myce.com/news/symantec-admits-their-network-was-hacked-57529/
