U.S. Department of Defense Renews Contract for Norton AntiVirus

- Safety of Government's Most Sensitive Data Entrusted to Symantec Product Family -

CUPERTINO, Calif. - Oct. 9, 1998 -Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing, today announced that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has renewed its contract for a Department of Defense-wide perpetual license of Symantec's Norton AntiVirus product family. Since October 1997, Norton AntiVirus has provided virus protection to all DoD employees and sites, including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines as well as Coast Guard, defense agency, and military academy personnel and offices worldwide. Norton AntiVirus also protects all DoD employees' home PCs as well as DoD-owned systems used by DoD contractors.

"The Department of Defense's electronic communications are crucial to what we do. Our employees depend on sharing information without needing to be concerned about virus infection," said Mark Bogart, contracting officer for DISA. "Symantec provides one of the leading anti-virus security solutions and its comprehensive anti-virus package covers a wide selection of operating systems keeping viruses under control in our multi-platform environment."

"The DoD originally selected Norton AntiVirus because of its superior technology and support as well as its multi-tiered strategy," said Enrique Salem, vice president of Symantec's Security and Assistance Business Unit. "Today we are pleased by the vote of confidence the DoD has given Norton AntiVirus technology and support. With this contract renewal, once again, the DoD is entrusting the protection of its worldwide network to Symantec Norton AntiVirus."

Under the terms of the agreement, the DoD will continue to use Norton AntiVirus for Workstations, Norton AntiVirus for NT Servers, Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh, Norton AntiVirus for Lotus Notes, Norton AntiVirus for Microsoft Exchange, Norton AntiVirus for Internet E-mail Gateways, and Norton AntiVirus for Firewalls to guard against infection at all virus entry points. A built-in Trojan Horse detection engine guards against online programs that may steal passwords or destroy data. In addition, state-of-the-art technology automatically blocks known destructive Active X and Java applets from entering a user's computer. Suspect files can be quarantined and/or encrypted and e-mailed to the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC) for analysis.

Symantec's Norton AntiVirus products are designed to protect the enterprise at the desktop, server, groupware servers, Internet, and gateway levels. Symantec's Norton AntiVirus products have received numerous awards since January 1998, including PC Magazine's Editor's Choice in 1998 for Best AntiVirus Utility for the third year in a row, as well as the magazine's 1997 Best AntiVirus Utility award, PC World's Best Buy, and PC Computing's A-List.

Symantec AntiVirus Research Center
Norton AntiVirus products are backed by the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC). SARC is the industry's largest dedicated team of virus experts. With offices located in the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands, the sun never sets on SARC. The center's mission is to provide swift, global responses to computer virus threats, proactively research and develop technologies that eliminate such threats, and educate the public on safe computing practices. As new computer viruses appear, SARC develops identification and detection for these viruses, and provides either a repair or delete operation, thus keeping users protected against the latest virus threats.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, view the Symantec Press Center at www.symantec.com/PressCenter/ on Symantec's Website.

Brands and products referenced herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. All prices noted are in US dollars and are valid only in the United States.