What’s the newest security threat lurking on your PC? It’s not the spam sitting in your inbox luring you to fake Web sites.
Or the keystroke-logging malware recording your passwords. It’s holes in the software designed to protect you from all that. It’s true: Hackers, bored with attacking Microsoft (MSFT), are going after Symantec (SYMC), whose Norton products are the first line of defense on 50 million PCs worldwide.
Says Ralph Echemendia, an info-tech security instructor at Vigilar’s Intense School, a Fort Lauderdale security training institute: "They’ve become a new target." That’s bad news for a company trying to differentiate itself from rivals — including Microsoft, which rolled out two security products on Nov. 29 — by positioning itself as a premium brand that charges top dollar. "The danger is you turn off consumers," says Andrew Jaquith of market researcher Yankee Group.
