Symantec Sued by a Chinese Lawyer for PC Collapse

According to the news published by Xinhuanet on May 29, 2007, a Chinese lawyer commences legal proceedings against the security software provider Symantec Corporation for the sudden failure of his computer by the company's flawed anti-virus update.

As per the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court, a lawyer with Hongmian Law Firm in southern Guangdog Province, Liu Shihui, is demanding $213 as reimbursement to recover damage to his computer because of Norton anti-virus software's automatic update on May 18.

Mr. Shihui stated that although his Norton anti-virus software was legal and it was valid till May 1, 2008, he was refused any help by the Norton services agencies. Finally, on May 20, he had to take the help of technicians to save his data.

A Symantec spokesperson (Symantec is the producer of the Norton Antivirus software) claims that Symantec is working hard for a constructive solution for this incident which was caused by improper treatment of upgrading anti-virus software, as per the news published by News. Xinhuanet on May 20, 2007.

On May 23, the spokesperson for Symantec Corporation Greater China region formally apologized for the incident at a conference. However, he but did not mention anything about the compensation that would be offered by the company.

Another client of Symantec from Beijing filed a suit asking for reimbursement of over $6537. The data of this client lost from his laptop while updating the Norton anti-virus software.

Norton software's Chinese version mistakenly identified two important files of the Microsoft XP operating system as deadly codes and deleted them, leading to the collapse of innumerable Chinese computers.

According to the news published by Computerworld in the third week of May, a flawed signature of virus distributed in the third week of May 2007, government media reported on May 20, 2007, destroying many Chinese personal computers running antivirus software by Symantec Corp.

Symantec rated the flaw as 'critical' when it understood its seriousness. According to US-CERT, this hole could allow a hacker to cause the browser of a victim to crash, as per news published by Itnews on May 18, 2007.

Related article: Sentence for American Contractor for Sabotaging Government Navy Computers

» SPAMfighter News - 6/8/2007