Symantec is one of the most powerful security companies on the Internet because it developed some popular applications such as Norton Antivirus, Norton Firewall or Norton System Utilities. Although it is a security company that is meant to assure the security of our computers, if something goes wrong the entire system can be affected. Take the example of a recently discovered vulnerability in Norton Personal Firewall that can allow an attacker to conduct Denial Of Service attacks. A successful attempt of this kind of attack can give even more power to the hacker, enabling him to control the entire affected system.

According to security company Secunia, the security flaw was confirmed only in three versions of the application (9.0.0.73, 9.1.1.7 and 9.1.0.33) but other editions might be also vulnerable.

"Matousec has discovered a vulnerability in Symantec Norton Personal Firewall 2006, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial of Service). The vulnerability is caused due to an input validation error in SPBBCDrv.sys when handling parameters of certain hooked functions. This can be exploited to crash the system by calling NtCreateMutant or NtOpenEvent with specially crafted parameters," Secunia said in the security advisory published today.

Although the security company rated the flaw as "not critical", it proves an important fact concerning the security of our computers: we're vulnerable to attacks even if we install powerful solution. If you don't agree with me, think a little at the mission of Norton Firewall. In fact, Symantec's tool was designed by the company to assure the security of our system and protect us against hackers and several types of attacks. Some hackers are using this security flaws to exploit our computers and control the system. If our virtual bodyguard is vulnerable to attacks, it's obvious our computers are opened to attacks.