Symantec tells customers to disable pcAnywhere software

[f1assistance]

"Symantec Corp advised customers to stop using its pcAnywhere software for accessing remote PCs, saying they are at increased risk of getting hacked because the blueprints to that software have been stolen."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7th6suv

[dmorris]

the "blueprints"

[sky-knight]

With RDP, VNC, GotomyPC, and Logmein out there...

People still use pcAnywhere?!?

[jcoehoorn]

When our college migrated this year to a new campus-wide software solution (registration, student billing, transcripts, payroll, donations, general ledger, etc), the vendor wanted us to install pcanywhere on the 2 new server machines for their remote staff to use to set things up. I refused and gave them remote desktop access instead.

[RBoynton]

PCAnywhere had its place a long time ago. It was always dog slow, and pricey for what it delivered. If anyone is still using it, they need to get up on what is current. I used to play with tin can telephones, but found there were things that worked much better!

[M.I.B.]

PCAnywhere?
Back in last century yes it was a good solution.
Today you use TeamViewer, NetViewer, VPN + RDP and so on.

MIB

[f1assistance]

I know of many SMB's currently only using RDP which we know is a security issue due to open port(s) and forward(s)...some suggest using an obscure port apart from 3389, but as we know were talking about a limited pool and an open port is an open port.
Anyway, obscure in 65k, that's sadly funny!

[dbunyard]

Originally Posted by f1assistance

I know of many SMB's currently only using RDP which we know is a security issue due to open port(s) and forward(s)...some suggest using an obscure port apart from 3389, but as we know were talking about a limited pool and an open port is an open port.
Anyway, obscure in 65k, that's sadly funny!

We use RDS for our after-hours call center to access our terminal server. It is on an "obscure" port but apart from that it's restricted to 2 of their live IP addresses so nobody else can get to it. If you do a port scan from anywhere else that port shows as closed.

[jcoehoorn]

What really sad here is that this is a company that's responsible for the security software that protects a very large percentage of world's PCs. For them to think available source == insecure is just wrong and sad.

A much better response would have been to release the source code publicly and turn the dying (and now dead, thanks to this move) product into an open source project that might have a chance to even thrive.

[TirsoJRP]

Originally Posted by jcoehoorn

When our college migrated this year to a new campus-wide software solution (registration, student billing, transcripts, payroll, donations, general ledger, etc), the vendor wanted us to install pcanywhere on the 2 new server machines for their remote staff to use to set things up. I refused and gave them remote desktop access instead.

Sounds like Jenzabar.