AVAR and Symantec announce the #1 Asia Pacific Conference on Malicious Code

The Association of anti Virus Asia Researchers 2003 conference to be held in Sydney, 6-7 November

SYDNEY --NSW - October 29, 2003 -- With the rapid increase of Internet threats such as worms, viruses and trojans, Symantec, the world leader in Internet security today announced the AVAR Conference 2003 (Association of anti Virus Asia Researchers), the leading e-security forum designed to bring together technology experts focused in the areas of antivirus and malicious code. The conference, sponsored by Symantec will be held on 6-7 November 2003 at the Westin Hotel, Sydney, Australia. The theme for this year's conference is 'Malicious Code', and will address emerging malicious code threats (viruses, worms and trojans), and the technologies designed to deal with these threats today and in the future.

Alfred Huger, Senior Director of Engineering, Symantec Security Response commented: "Internet threats are increasingly becoming more complex in nature - they are now using multiple methods of propagation and attack.

"Symantec's recent Internet Security Threat Report has shown that during the first six months of 2003, there was a 400 per cent increase in malicious code using new technologies such as Instant Messaging and Peer to Peer networking as spreading mechanisms. Looking into the future, malicious code may start to target other systems including Linux."

Seiji Murakami, President, AVAR commented: "The AVAR conference enables experts in the antivirus community to come together to discuss these new risks and the evolving technologies to combat malicious code at all layers within an organisation's network."

The keynote speech will be presented by Mr Huger and will include a video address by industry expert Richard Clarke, former Special Advisor to the President of the USA for cyber security. Speakers include Vesselin Bontchev (Frisk Software International), Paul Ducklin (Sophos Anti-Virus), Dimitry Gryaznov (Network Associates), Graham Ingram (AusCert), Peter Coroneus (Internet Industry Association), and Robert Vibert (AVIEN). They will address topics related to emerging malicious code threats including new threats and vulnerabilities of wireless devices, why email virus detection and blocking is not enough by itself to adequately manage incidents, and new threat mitigation strategies for malicious code.

Sponsors of the conference include Symantec (Platinum), Computer Associates, Network Associates, Trend Micro (Gold), Sophos Anti-Virus (Silver) and Sensory Networks (Silver). AusCERT and MessageLabs are supporters of the AVAR conference.

Please visit http://www.aavar.org for the AVAR Conference 2003 timetable, list of speakers and topics.

The AVAR Conference is an annual event organised by the Association of anti Virus Asia Researchers (AVAR) since 1998. Last year's AVAR 2002 Conference in Seoul attracted 180 technology experts, including information security managers, network and system administrators, government officials, antivirus vendors and practitioners and AVAR members.

About AVAR
AVAR (Association of anti Virus Asia Researchers) was formed in June, 1998. The mission of the AVAR is to prevent the spread and damage caused by computer viruses, and to develop cooperative relationships amongst antivirus researchers in Asia.

AVAR is an independent and a not-for-profit organisation, which is oriented in the Asia Pacific region. AVAR consists of prominent experts of computer viruses from various countries including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, UK, and U.S.A. AVAR plays an important role in fighting against computer viruses on a global scale and raises users' awareness of computer security issues. The organisation has a constitution and the code of conduct, and is committed to improving members' knowledge and skills. For more information, visit www.aavar.org

About Symantec
Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, remote management technologies and security services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec's Norton brand of consumer security products is a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in 36 countries. For more information, please visit www.symantec.com.au

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please view the Symantec Press Center at http://www.symantec.com/PressCenter/ on Symantec's Web site. All prices noted are in US dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec logo are trademarks or registered trademarks, in the United States and certain other countries, of Symantec Corporation. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are respectfully acknowledged.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including forecasts of future revenue and earnings per share, expected activities, and other financial and business results that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this press release. Such risk factors include, among others: the sustainability of recent growth rates, particularly in consumer products; the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, particularly enterprise security; the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments; the competitive environment in the software industry; general market conditions, fluctuations in currency exchange rates, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems; and whether Symantec can successfully develop new products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in the Risk Factors sections of Symantec's previously filed Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 4, 2003. Symantec assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release except as otherwise required by law.