Employees with managed Symantec clients may notice the green dot disappear from the gold shield on their desktop 'tray' between noon and 6 pm on Thursday, January 2, as the Symantec server software is upgraded to the newest version. The Symantec clients will continue to perform all necessary scans and configured anti-virus and firewall protections during this period. Questions or problems may be directed to the Help Desk at (269) 387-4357, option 1.
Symantec 12.1.5 is now available in the GoWMU software downloads channel. This version, for Apple, Linux and Windows, replaces 12.1.4. Version 11 is no longer supported or receiving updates. All faculty and staff should contact their unit IT support person to request an upgrade. Questions should be directed to the Help Desk at (269) 387-4357, option 1.
The Symantec server will be upgraded between 6 and 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30. Some users will see a red dot next to their anti-virus gold shield icon. This will automatically correct itself at the next scheduled connection, every four hours.
Please disregard the previous two notices. That is the message that will appear to the user during the updates.
Last week Symantec issued some critical patches. Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security announced “severity of these vulnerabilities (remote code execution at root or SYSTEM privilege) make this a very serious event”, and US-CERT encourages users and network administrators to patch Symantec or Norton antivirus products immediately.
While there has been no evidence of exploitation, the ease of attack, widespread nature of the products, and severity of the exploit may make this vulnerability a popular target. The download page in GoWMUhas been updated and beginning this morning, all computers running the default WMU-managed client will be upgraded within 24 hours.