New (To Me) Virus Co vs Norton Anti Virus

Monday past when I started my PC a Symantec Window appeared and advised that "Norton AntiVirus had lost Integrity with my System. This was probably caused by a Hacker attempting to enter your files. You must uninstall and reinstall Norton AV and if Av was a part of Norton System Works, you must also uninstall and reinstall that program. "

This reminded me of a program my ISP has offered (Cox Cable) for no charge. They went up $2.00 a month recently and that probably covers the "No Charge. "

The Anti Virus part is Authentium Security Anaylsis & Research (STAR) Protal. Would like to know if anyone has information about the program.

Also, they offer a Firewall and a Sypware Removal with Realtime Spyware/Adware scanner. Also has a Parental Block.

I've put it in my system to see how goes but sure would like to hear from someone familiar with this program from Authentium.

The Firewall is very simple to configure. The Virus program will not run with any other Virus program except AVG. The Firewall will not run with any other Firewall program.

If it's a dog, would like to know and reinstall Norton and Zone Alarm. If not, will keep this and see how goes.

 

Mudd--Was that the exact Symantec error message? I did a search on the Symantec site for info on "lost integrity" but could not find anything. Just searching for "integrity" produced the following
"http://search.symantec.com/custom/us/query.html
I also searched Google for Authentium Security. There are several references including their home page. Looks authentic. And Spychecker did not indicate any spyware involved.
A little hard to believe they could be at the performance level of Symantec but they performed commendable in this comparative testing.
http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?table
And I guess Cox is a reasonably reliable company to not offer something that would wreck your PC.
P.S. Most recommendations are not to run two Firewalls at the same time. And usually no particular benefit to running two AV programs.

 

Jim, the very first part of the message I have forgotten but the words "Norton Anti Virus has lost Integrity with your System" is accurate. It did wander on and tell me other things that may have caused this besides the suspected Hacker but I have forgotten. If I were not so old and senile, I would have made a picture of the message. It was headlined SYMANTEC rather then Norton, their color, Orange and Red.

I've used Norton since 1998, never have I had a problem with it. While I'm thinking about this, also something else went bad. As I tried to uninstall Norton System Works, it wouldn't! Went to Add/Remove and it said could not find uninstaller. Was about to manually try when I decided to try to install over the old one, then uninstall. I also couldn't install not only the System Works, I couldn't install anything. Tried several little things to see if I could figure it out. When I tried, I got a message, (this is close but not exactly) "You are trying to install/uninstall while in the Safe Mode or--and the rest I have forgot.

I put the exact message in Google and got about 10 hits, mostly from forums a year ago. Had several suggestions that seems complicated to me, except for the last one. Some guy said, "If a Hacker has tried to enter your system and tried to bypass your Anti Virus, it will sometime disable DCOM." Never did know what DCOM was. So I checked and it was "disabled." Started it again, rebooted and the installer/uninstaller worked. How about that. Maybe Symentec was right about the Hacker.

I feel better about the Anti Virus. Thanks for the reply.

 

Mudd--In coming weeks/months please tell us about your experience with Authentium. How often do they update the virus definition files? Do you get any viruses?

 

I will Jim, and have done a little searching on Cox Cable about this. I'm guessing it's a Cooperate Virus program. I load the setup files from Cox but the install comes from somewhere else when I put my user name and password to my Cable Co in. It goes there for updates. Has auto updates but can manual do it also.

They have a newsletter that I'm going to subscribe to so maybe that will give some clues. It's interesting.

Should I get a Virus or any other happening with this I will post it.

Thanks for your interest and the information you gave earlier.

If you ever get your vehicle up the mountain top, roll on down to see us sometime.

 

Mudd--I forgot to address your problem uninstalling NIS. Go here
http://www.symantec.com/search/
In the Search line enter the name of the program and the year. Click the Knowledge Base box, then Search. You may find some help. Uninstalling NIS seems to change every year. NIS 2004 went very easily for me using Windows Control Panel|Add/Remove Programs.
P.S. What? Come out of my private canyon? But that Llano Estacado wine is not too bad.

 

DCOM = An acronym for Distributed Common Object Model that allows communication and manipulation of objects over a network connection. Was called Network OLE (object linking and embedding) in a former life.

Basically (and I can't get any fancier because I don't really understand it either), it allows stuff that may not be at the same location to 'talk' to each other or otherwise work together.

A link in a spreadsheet where you can click and be taken there is using OLE. Lots of other pieces but that sort of thing.

Here is a somewhat more techie description and explanation.

 

Thank you Mr Vail. You have made me realize I don't want to know what DCOM is but I appreciate you telling me