As you surely know, Symantec is one of the main security companies on the Internet because it developed the well known antivirus product, Norton Antivirus. Although it is often identified through this security tool, Symantec means more than a single product, the company owning an impressive number of security utilities especially designed to make email, Internet, servers or browsing more secure. A few days ago, several security companies identified multiple vulnerabilities in Symantec's products but the firm sustained the flaw comes from the installer of the applications that is provided by another developer.

Today, a new vulnerability is identified in Symantec Mail Security for SMTP, the application developed by the company that is meant to enhance the security of the mail accounts. Security company Secunia sustained the flaw exists only in version 5.0 for Windows and rated it as highly critical.

"A vulnerability has been reported in Symantec Mail Security for SMTP, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) and potentially compromise a vulnerable system. The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error when handling certain specific messages and can be exploited to cause a crash and potentially allow execution of arbitrary code. The vulnerability is reported in version 5.0 for Windows. Other versions may also be affected," Secunia said.

Symantec was quickly informed about the security flaw and issued a patch to fix it, the company confirming the critical level of the vulnerability. "Patch 175 addresses multiple issues in Symantec Mail Security for SMTP 5.0. Patch 175 includes and supersedes patches 170, 171, and 172," Symantec sustained.

If you want to read all the information published in the security advisory released by Symantec, as well as detailed installation steps of the patch, you can click on this link.