Symantec Makes Equity Investment in Brightmail

Symantec Strengthens Existing Relationship to Provide Comprehensive E-Mail Security

CUPERTINO, Calif. - July 24, 2000 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), a world leader in Internet security, today announced an $18 million strategic investment in Brightmail, Inc., a provider of solutions that enable service providers to manage and protect their e-mail systems. With this investment, Dana Siebert, executive vice president and general manager of Symantec's Service Provider Solutions Division, will join Brightmail's board of directors and Symantec will take a 11 percent equity stake in the company.

"Symantec's investment in Brightmail will expand our existing relationship to provide comprehensive security solutions for one of a company's most mission critical applications - e-mail," said Siebert. "Brightmail and Symantec are already providing some of the world's largest service providers with an integrated anti-virus and anti-spam solution and anticipate opportunities to integrate our content filtering solutions as well."

"Working with Symantec allows us to offer our customers advanced protection for their e-mail systems in a single, common solution," said Gary Hermansen, chief executive officer of Brightmail. "This relationship will allow service providers to leverage their current investment in Brightmail technology and differentiate their offering for their customers."

Symantec was the lead investor in Brightmail's strategic round of financing, which generated $35 million. The pre-IPO round also included investments from leading venture capital firms and prominent individuals.

Earlier this year, Symantec partnered with Brightmail to provide the industry's first integrated anti-virus and anti-spam solution for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Application Service Providers (ASPs). Brightmail has integrated Symantec's award-winning anti-virus technology with Brightmail's cutting-edge Anti-Spam Service. This combined solution is designed to reduce the costs associated with managing multiple messaging technologies and allow ISPs and ASPs to cost-effectively deliver robust e-mail protection and filtering to corporations and consumers worldwide.

About Brightmail
Brightmail Inc. provides filtering solutions that enable ISPs, ASPs and portals to control and protect their email systems. The Brightmail Solution Suite is a carrier-class mailwall that filters messages to block spam and email-borne viruses, and can be extended to provide other forms of content control. To insure the earliest detection of security threats, the Brightmail Probe Network monitors leading ISPs with 80-million email accounts. The continuously staffed Brightmail Logistics and Operations Center (BLOC) analyzes each attack and rapidly deploys countermeasures to customer networks. Brightmail is a privately held firm with funding from Accel Partners, Crosslink Capital, and Technology Crossover Ventures. For more information about Brightmail, please visit the company's Web site at www.brightmail.com.

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, new security threats, 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 concering 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.