Symantec - Disable pcAnywhere Now! Who the Heck Still uses it?

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Symantec - Disable pcAnywhere Now! Who the Heck Still uses it?

symantec-pcanywhere.jpgSymantec suspected in 2006 that its network had been breached, but when Anonymous started talking publicly about Symantec source code it confirmed their suspicions. According to Wired:
The company surprised the public last week when it disclosed that hackers had obtained source code for its pcAnywhere software and other products, and that the code had likely been stolen in a six-year-old breach that Symantec had never disclosed.

Symantec said in its announcement that users should disable pcAnywhere until the company had time to update the software to ensure that hackers are unable to exploit holes they might find in the code.

Disable pcAnywhere? Disable pcAnywhere? Now I was a huge fan of pcAnywhere ... back in like 1996. It was one of the first, perhaps the first remote desktop sharing software. But when Windows XP bundled a free version of essentially the same functionality, I stopped using pcAnywhere. Putting aside some slowness issues with Microsoft's Remote Desktop client, why pay for software when you can get it for free?

I'm shocked that people still use pcAnywhere when Microsoft offers a free remote desktop client from Windows XP on - Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, etc. Not to mention the various free VNC & open source cross-platform clients.

You can read the security whitepaper, where Symantec advises users to disable pcAnywhere due to Anonymous's access to the source code of not just pcAnywhere, but also Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, and Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack). Good thing I use avast! antivirus! smiley-laughing

Update: One other thought.
Maybe pcAnywhere offers easier multiple-server management, but I can just as easily create multiple .rdp Remote Desktop files or use the Remote Desktop MMC snap-in within the Microsoft Management Console to manage multiple servers. So still not understanding why people still pay for and use pcAnywhere.


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