Written By : Ulukai
August 2004

4. Some viruses out there disable anti-virus products, some hackers target certain firewalls for known vulnerabilities. Do you think it's important for your company to be well known in this light?

Norman: Virus authors and hackers are very often using the same names of applications of AV and Firewalls. These lists of names contain always well-known names like ZoneAlarm, etc. It is funny to see components of old Norman AV-software in that list, especially since those components are not in use anymore. Regarding this, to be well known is a disadvantage. However this is a very relative state.

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5. When Microsoft released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP it became clear that Norton Antivirus wasn't compatible (which was fixed after a patch). Did you take early steps to prevent such problems?? (See press release)

Norman: Norman has a strong cooperation with MS, among others in VIA (Virus Information Alliance). All developments have been very closely monitored and tested by us. That's why Norman Software was already SP2-compliant before SP2 was released. For the users this will be visible in the Windows Security Centre (WSC). WSC is new in SP2 and it shows the status of both the Virus scanner and Personal Firewall installation, whether it is up-to-date and whether it actively running.

Besides: all software released in Microsoft's release-lab is also scanned by Norman software.
See http://www.norman.com/News/Press_releaseslocal/2003/13829/en-us

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6. Do you expect that there will be any new viruses that can attack Windows XP SP2 machines any time soon? How long do you think it will take?

Norman: It will not take much time before viruses specifically will attack SP2. Probably new vulnerabilities will be exploited quickly, so users will be open the moment they install SP2. We also expect new viruses/Trojans that will disable the Windows Firewall (installed and active by default in SP2) to appear within a short time.