DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk (02/23/91)
Since I posted a comment from PC Business World recently which was critical of the Norton Anti-Virus package; I think it incombent on me to offer also this response from Symantec. The "%" stand for bullets in the original text, which I have abbreviated, slightly edited and reformatted. Regards, Douglas de Lacey, Cambridge University. <quote> I would like to respond to PC Business Word's review of Symantec's Norton Anti Virus for the PC (Nav) software--"Physician, heal thyself", 22 January 1991. Not only did it set out deliberately to discredit the solution offered by the Norton Anti Virus, but it did so with considerable inaccuracy. To illustrate this, I have highlighted some of the criticism in the review and offer Symantec's reply. .. %"lt contains the signatures for 141 viruses": this is incorrect. We do not contain signatures but virus definitions, which offer a more comprehensive description of the virus and in some cases, contain repair facilities. Furthermore, Nav has more than 141 definitions and detects more than 200 viruses and strains. We are constantly adding to the libraries to increase detection and prevention with monthly update disks, the first of which is currently being shipped. We have also consistently made it clear that we place great emphasis on providing users with a data protection service. This includes a unique Virus Newsline which users can dial into for information, a Virus Clinic-providing users with comprehensive seminars to address anti-viral issues-and the regular anti-virus update disk protecting against new virus outbreaks. It is also worth mentioning that as there is no standard taxonomy of viruses, competitive analysis of virus libraries is spurious. Until there is an industry standard way of naming viruses, competitive surveys should be treated with caution. %"Unless you have Norton Intercept loaded in memory, you must boot up from an uninfected, write-protected Dos disk": this is no criticism, but highlights a positive feature. Good practice dictates that if Virus Intercept is not loaded, the user should boot from a write-protected disk. Virus Intercept also detects all defined viruses in memory. %"PC performance drops noticeably": in the December issue of the Virus Bulletin, Nav was rated better than the competition ... %"Percentage of files in which viral activity was detected--80%": Virus Bulletin stated that Nav had a 99% capability. ... .. we have d already begun a dialogue with Interpol via Bob Hay, chairman of Fast and the Police Computer Crime Unit, as well as talking to our competitors about establishing an independent, international virus research facility. %"The company says it does not do research in Europe, nor does it co-operate with the UK research community": this is untrue. ... YUSUF HASSAN General Manager Symantec UK <endquote>
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (03/01/91)
In a quote "YUSUF HASSAN General Manager Symantec UK" quoted the Virus Bulletin, and as the Technical Editor I just wanted to clarify two minor details. >%"PC performance drops noticeably": in the December issue of the Virus >Bulletin, Nav was rated better than the competition ... Better than some of the competing products in some areas. >%"Percentage of files in which viral activity was detected--80%": >Virus Bulletin stated that Nav had a 99% capability. ... 99% only when scanning the standard test set of only 100 common viruses. If the full set of 400+ variants was scanned, the performance is not nearly as good. It must of course be noted that the same applies to all other anti-virus products. - -frisk Fridrik Skulason University of Iceland | Technical Editor of the Virus Bulletin (UK) | Reserved for future expansion E-Mail: frisk@rhi.hi.is Fax: 354-1-28801 |