Question/Issue:
What is Symantec's response to Secunia Security Advisory SA25354?


Solution:
On July 23, 2007 security firm Secunia issued a security advisory relating to insecure file permissions on Symantec Discovery 6.x. This advisory relates to the default file permissions set at installation on the Symantec Discovery server and is considered "less critical" by Secunia.

Symantec has expressly designed the Discovery product such that anyone with access to the Discovery server should have the ability to run the Discovery Control Center. In most of our customer implementations, the server is restricted to administrators only, and thus, this advisory is not considered cause for concern. However, for customers who would like to implement a higher level of security than what is already present within their implementation, we recommend more stringent file based permissions on the directory be set. Please contact Symantec Support if you would like help in setting these permissions.


Note: This product is unrelated to the Symantec System Center Discovery Service. The Discovery Service sends a ping packet to find computers that have Symantec AntiVirus or Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition installed. More detailed information about the discovery service, how it works, and how to perform various types of discovery scans can be found in the Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition Administrator's Guide in the section titled 'Discovering Computers and Refreshing the Console'.

References:
http://secunia.com/advisories/25374/

Document ID: 2007817193508198
Last Modified: 10/18/2007
Date Created: 07/25/2007
Product(s): Symantec Discovery 6.5
Release(s): Discovery 6.x