Symantec admits 2006 security breach exposed source code

Security giant Symantec has been forced to admit that its network was indeed breached in an attack which led to the source code for a range of products being compromised, countering previous claims by the firm.

Earlier this month Symantec issued a statement saying that a "segment" of its source code had been compromised after hackers gained access to the information by attacking Indian military servers using its products.

It added that only "two older enterprise products" were affected by the hack.

However, the firm issued a statement on Tuesday admitting that a hack in 2006 breached its systems and that code from a wider range of products was exposed.

"Upon investigation of the claims made by Anonymous regarding source code disclosure, Symantec believes that the disclosure was the result of a theft of source code that occurred in 2006," it said.

"We believe that source code for the 2006-era versions of the following products was exposed: Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition; Norton Internet Security; Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack); and pcAnywhere."

Symantec argued that due to the "age" of the stolen source code, customers would "not be in any increased danger".

"Customers of Symantec's pcAnywhere product may face a slightly increased security risk as a result of this exposure if they do not follow general best practices," it added.

"Symantec is currently in the process of reaching out to our pcAnywhere customers to make them aware of the situation and to provide remediation steps to maintain the protection of their devices and information."

Hacker Yama Tough, who is believed to be speaking on behalf of Indian hacking group Lords of Dharmaraja, tweeted on Saturday that the code would be released online starting on Tuesday. However, the group has not come good on its promise as yet.

It's not been a great start to 2012 for the security giant, with a US consumer having issued a lawsuit against the firm, alleging it uses scare tactics to persuade its customers into buying its products.