The Security Mentor

Symantec, makers of Norton Antivirus and many other security products, issued a warning about a security vulnerability in Norton Antivirus and other Symantec products. This is one of the really bad problems where all the bad guy has to do is give some poisonous input to a program in order to take over your computer. And of course, antivirus programs run automatically on all your incoming email and other untrusted input. You can't stop this from happening.

(Well, you could, by installing yet another security program to protect your antivirus program. I don't recommend it. First it's ridiculous. Second, the company offering the protective product once had an equally bad security hole in their firewall product, which allowed a destructive worm to spread.)

Symantec has released updates already for some affected products. Check the link above to see if your version is at risk. Meantime, leave your virus checker running. You're still safer with it than without it, because there are thousands of viruses circulating now that it can stop and the bad guys haven't (yet) started broadcasting something that takes advantage of the Symantec flaw.