This week a report was released that Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition 10.x (PC), Symantec Norton Antivirus 9.x (Mac), and Symantec Norton Antivirus for Exchange 2.x products are vulnerable to a library heap overflow if Symantec AV scans .RAR* files while they are being decompressed, resulting in the potential for the Symantec Antivirus product to be exploited by a malicious hacker who can take control of the affected computer. Symantec has not released a patch for this vulnerability. In the meantime I have changed the central Symantec servers to scan certain file types rather than all file types in auto-protect mode. The list of currently auto-protected file types is the default list that Symantec provides, as well as .ZIP files. As would be assumed, .RAR files are not being scanned via auto-protect at this time. Please note that this change only affects auto-protect scanning on PCs. Macintosh Symantec/Norton Antivirus and Symantec Norton Antivirus for Exchange are -not- protected by the central servers, so Macintosh users and Exchange server administrators must either choose to disable auto-protect via the Norton Antivirus options or choose not to download and decompress .RAR files while the vulnerability still exists. More information about the vulnerability is available at: A full list of affected products is available at: When Symantec does release a patch the CIT Antivirus team will provide further instruction or information. *For more information about WinRar/.RAR files please visit RARLAB, makers of WinRAR.