Fix for Norton AntiVirus 9.0.x problem re deleting Apple Mail inbox

   On February 13, I passed along a warning to this list that if
Norton AntiVirus version 9.0.x for Mac OS X detected a virus in the
inbox file for Apple Mail (aka "Mail for Mac OS X" or "Mail.app"), it
could inadvertently delete this entire file:

   http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/magnet/2004/0075.html

   (From various reports, the file affected by this issue appears to
have been ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/INBOX.mbox/mbox)

   This is an update: six days later, embedded in NAV's Virus
Definitions Update of February 19, 2004, Symantec Corporation quietly
released a fix for this problem, as acknowledged by Symantec
representatives on various Mac forums and news sites. As long as
you've kept your virus definitions updated, you should have
automatically received this fix.

   Norton AntiVirus 9.0.x for Mac OS X comes pre-configured to
automatically check for updates on the first day of every month. You
can also manually check for updates at any time by opening the Norton
AntiVirus application, clicking the "LiveUpdate" button, and then
following the on-screen instructions. In addition, you can set up or
customize schedules for future automatic updates by opening
LiveUpdate, then clicking LiveUpdate's "Norton Scheduler" button.

Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group

P.S. The temporary workaround suggested by Symantec, when this
problem was first disclosed, was to select "System Preferences..."
from the Apple menu, select "Norton Auto-Protect", and turn off "Scan
Compressed Files." Norton AntiVirus's AutoProtect component would
still be able to detect viruses, worms, and trojans whenever you open
infected files, even with this setting turned off.

   (Immediately after this problem surfaced, some Symantec tech
support reps apparently told some customers that turning AutoProtect
off entirely was necessary to work around this problem, but that
advice turned out to be incorrect.)

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Received on Tue Mar 9 09:54:49 2004