Symantec Extends Award-Winning Anti-Virus Protection to Linux Platform

New Anti-Virus Engine Provides Detection and Repair for Linux-Based Viruses

CUPERTINO, Calif. - April 20, 2000 - Symantec Corporation, the world leader in Internet security, today announced the availability of the most advanced virus detection and repair technology engineered to address the growing need for Linux-based virus protection. Award-winning Norton AntiVirus now scans and analyses files in the ELF file format - the format used by the Linux platform.

"Since Linux is free, "open source," and runs on everyday PCs, we expect increasing numbers of viruses on this platform," said Sanjiv Bhargava, vice president of Core Technology. "By delivering this technology, Symantec demonstrates its commitment to meeting the ever changing security needs of our customers."

Existing Norton AntiVirus users benefit immediately from Linux-based virus protection by using the product's LiveUpdate feature. LiveUpdate provides a simple way to keep users protected by automatically connecting to a Symantec server to download the latest virus definitions and software updates. In this case, LiveUpdate interacts with Symantec's modular core anti-virus engine, NAVEX to create the Linux modification. NAVEX is an advanced technology designed to provide customers with compact, easy-to-distribute, easy-to-install updates to the Norton AntiVirus scanning engine.

"Adding Linux support illustrates Symantec's effort to provide solutions that protect customers using all types of platforms," said Paul McNamara, vice president of business development, Red Hat, Inc. "We are please to see top security solutions, like Symantec's anti-virus solution, available for Linux."

According to research conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC), preliminary figures for 1999 show that Linux shipments hold 24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998; and that 40 percent of all spending on Linux servers is for Internet-related applications. Research performed by NetCraft, Inc. states that 29 percent of all public Web servers also run on Linux, making Linux one of the most popular operating system for public Web sites.

About Symantec
Symantec, a world leader in Internet security technology, provides content security solutions to enterprise organisations and helps companies manage and support workforces that use computers and other mobile devices.

Symantec's Canadian operations are headquartered in Toronto with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver. For more information on Symantec products or current promotions, contact the Canadian office at (416) 441-3676 or access Symantec's Canadian web-site at www.symantec.ca. Symantec is an active member of the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST).

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FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above. Among these are the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments, the competitive environment in the software industry, dependence on other products, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems, and the importance of new Symantec products. Additional information concerning those and other factors is contained in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 2, 1999 and Form 10-Q for the period ended December 31, 1999.