As expected, hackers have released the source code of Norton Antivirus 2006 on the net. According to the page on The Pirate Bay where the 1.1GB file has been posted as a torrent, the hackers go by the name of AntiSec and sympathise with the Anonymous hacker group. The posting is dedicated to a number of arrested LulzSec contributors whose release is called for by the hackers.

While Symantec has confirmed the source code's authenticity, the company has put the issue in perspective: the code is part of the 2006 version and its release has been anticipated for some time, said Symantec. The company added that internal analysis shows that, because of the age of the exposed code, there is no increased risk for the products in Symantec's current anti-virus and endpoint security portfolios. The current version's default security settings will suffice against any possible threats that might materialise as a result of this incident, said Symantec.

The code that has now been posted is believed to be the second portion of a large cache of code that was exposed during an incident in 2006. In February, the sources of pcAnywhere were posted on The Pirate Bay after an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate hush money. Symantec anticipates that the source code of Norton Internet Security 2006 will also be posted on the net in the near future.

(djwm)