Presskontakt Symantec was recently made aware of an issue with the Norton Spam Alert feature of NIS 2003 that could, in some isolated situations, cause the product to incorrectly delete some incoming e-mail messages. A patch is now available via LiveUpdate. Q1 What is happening with Norton Internet Security 2003? A1 The vast majority of Norton Internet Security 2003 customers experience no problems with their product. They are able to compute with confidence knowing that their systems are protected against viruses, worms, Trojan horses, hackers and other Internet security threats. A very small number of users, however, did report that the Norton Spam Alert feature in Norton Internet Security 2003 inadvertently deleted e-mails before they arrived in the user’s in-box. Based on the number of reports received, this appears to have been an extremely rare occurrence. Symantec has developed a patch to correct this problem. The patch is available via Symantec’s LiveUpdate service. Q2 Why were e-mail messages being deleted? A2 The issue appears to have been caused by the way Norton Spam Alert allocated memory. If a user ran his or her computer continuously, received a large volume of e-mail, or configured his or her e-mail client to check the mail server frequently, Norton Spam Alert could cause memory allocation errors in some circumstances. This issue has been resolved with the patch that is available via Symantec’s LiveUpdate service. Q3 What is Symantec doing about the problem? A3 Symantec developed a patch that is available to customers via our LiveUpdate service. Users of Norton Internet Security 2003 should run LiveUpdate to download the patch. Customers are always encouraged to run LiveUpdate weekly to ensure that they have the latest software patches and content updates available. Examples of content updates delivered via LiveUpdate include new firewall rules, intrusion detection signatures, and URL lists for filtering inappropriate Web sites. Q4 How will customers know if Norton Spam Alert inappropriately deleted their incoming e-mails? A4 The handful of users who reported this problem stated that they received an e-mail message with a subject line that reads “Symantec E-Mail Proxy Deleted Message.” Q5 What should customers do if they are using Norton Internet Security 2003? A5 If a customer is using Norton Internet Security 2003, they should run LiveUpdate to download the patch that corrects this problem. Users should run LiveUpdate weekly to ensure that they have the most up-to-date software patches and content updates. Q6 When was the problem first identified? A6 A customer first reported the problem on a Symantec discussion group on October 14. Because this is such an uncommon occurrence, it took the product management team time to replicate the problem. As soon as the issue was identified, the team started work on a product patch to correct the error.