11 Jan

Symantec and Norton Anti Virus fails

Author: admin  |  Category: I say

My Laptop has felt a little off, I mean even more than usual because as I have said before Dell/Lenovo and Pinnacle Micro refused to take responsibility for hardware incompatible with Microsoft Vista even though I bought the machine with the OS installed.

Anyway I ran my Norton Antivirus and found nothing, According to Norton my PC is clean, There are no virus’s. I decided to check the task manager to see what processes I had previously shut down had switched themselves back on again. I run minimum processes because Vista is pathetic and rips off the processing power and memory.

I found this.

Task manager finds crss.exe

Task manager finds crss.exe

As I did not recognise the process, I decided to Google for it, I found the following. sites, all of them proclaiming crss.exe to be a virus, some say its a worm others a trojan, not to be confused by this lack of consistency I visited symantec.com for clarity.

Google results for crss.exe

  1. crss.exe – crss – Process Information

    crss.exe is a process which is registered as W32.AGOBOT.GH Worm. This virus is distributed via the Internet through e-mail and comes in the form of an …

    www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/crss/ – 146k – Cached – Similar pages

  2. Forums – crss.exe- how to remove it please? – PC Advisor

    In task manager i found crss.exe and on doing some research found that it … Just an update: I have just done more scans and in task manager crss.exe is …

    www.pcadvisor.co.uk/forums/index.cfm?action=showthread&threadid=220193&forumid=1 – 54k –

  3. crss.exe Windows process – What is it?

    crss.exe file information on Windows XP. If you have a crss.exe problem or error or want to remove this file, check it out.

    www.file.net/process/crss.exe.html – 11k – Cached – Similar pages

Symantec results for crss.exe

Trojan.Progent Remover | Symantec
… policies\Explorer\Run; Drops following files: %Windows%\Crss.exe: Detected as
Trojan Horse; %Winodws%\mfps.exe: (Detected as Infostealer); …

Backdoor.Pcclient.B Remover | Symantec
… exe. Executes iexplore.exe and injects itself into it, once the .dll file
is injected into the crss.exe or svchost.exe process. …
[ More results from www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp ]

If Symantec is aware why can NORTON AV not find it?

So Symantec is aware of the threat, It’s on their pages, yet their software fails to detect the threat. It doesn’t just fail to remove it it just does not find it at all. Here is the proof

Norton anti virus results

Norton anti virus results

As I know exactly what a trojan is and even more so an information stealer and key logger is. I checked the registry and searched my computer for for all the information specified on those pages. Nada… Zip. The information is incorrect.
I searched the Norton site for support and the only anti virus support is paid for. I decided that I need to check this out and contacted them. I told them what the problem is. They asked a few questions about my contact details and then started telling me that working on the registry can have a negative effect on my PC’s performance… well I never, a disclaimer first.
Then I got told about professional virus fighting teams that can access my computer remotely and find all the viruses and other threats not found by Norton AV. But here is the kicker, it would cost me 99 Euros. Well lay me over a barrel and … no don’t. I bought and paid for Norton Antivirus because it is supposed to keep my PC clear of threats like these. I bought and paid for Norton Antivirus so that I could be assured my computer was virus free.
I do not understand why if their product fails to do the job I should be laying out a Thousand Rand or slightly more to fix the problem. A Thousand Rand can buy me four antivirus packages or pay for Norton almost 7 times.
Am I the only computer tech that fixes my faults and does not make the customer pay for my lack of knowledge?
I think 2009 will be the year that I upgrade all my Computers to Ubuntu Linux.

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No Responses to “Symantec and Norton Anti Virus fails”

  1. Carl Says:
    January 11th, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    Try Spybot Search & Destroy – a free spyware remover http://www.safer-networking.org/. It sometimes does the job when other programs fail

  2. Ben (1 comments.) Says:
    February 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm

    crss.exe is a legitimate microsoft file that is sometimes overwritten by a trojan of the same name hoping to avoid detection. Any website that doesn’t tell you that the file could be legit is not doing you any favors (and probably trying to sell you something — besides norton). Follow Carl’s recommendation and double check norton with spybot to be sure.

    Bens last blog post..What is SEO Web Hosting?

  3. jaco Says:
    July 30th, 2009 at 10:24 am

    i have been running symantec corporate for a few years on all my servers.. cleint pc’s and my personal laptops..no issues..no other anti virus has come close to what have experienced!! gr8 product!