Symantec introduces new Vulnerability Assessment Solution

Symantec Vulnerability Assessment provides vulnerability identification and prioritisation to proactively secure systems at risk

Hong Kong -- 29 May 2003 - Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, has released Symantec Vulnerability Assessment, which provides greater control of the network infrastructure through the identification and prioritisation of vulnerabilities and by providing extensive information on remediation actions.

"The frequency of vulnerabilities discovered is rising. The latest release of Internet Security Threat Report tracked more than 2,500 new vulnerabilities in 2002, an 81.5 percent increase over 2001. The core problem faced by many organisations is that they are unaware of the vulnerabilities in their systems and applications, and lack the resources to determine if the identified vulnerabilities have been resolved," said David Sykes, North Asia Director at Symantec.

"Symantec Vulnerability Assessment helps organisations deal with vulnerabilities, identify them, and weed them out of their environment." added Sykes. "Not only does it optimise the control and minimises the complexity of identifying vulnerable systems, it also provides extensive remediation information needed to proactively secure an organisation's technology infrastructure."

Symantec Vulnerability Assessment determines vulnerable systems and applications across an enterprise faster and more thoroughly than individual network-based scanners. The Web-based software prioritises vulnerabilities in terms of urgency, impact rating and remediation, allowing staff to focus on the most critical vulnerabilities first.

Symantec Vulnerability Assessment is also the first vulnerability assessment solution to leverage the extensive, industry-leading vulnerability database from Symantec, which is indexed to identify threats recognised by Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) and Bugtraq. CVE is compiled by The Manchester Institute of Telematices and Employment Research (MITER) at the Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England. The Bugtraq mailing list offers a forum for objective reporting by security experts on the latest IT threats.

Up-to-the-minute vulnerability signatures are created as soon as new vulnerabilities are identified by Symantec Security Response, delivering detailed descriptions and remediation information. Symantec's LiveUpdate technology is integrated into Symantec Vulnerability Assessment to provide rapid, automatic deployment of new security updates and modules.

In addition, Symantec Vulnerability Assessment can be tightly integrated with Symantec Incident Manager 2.0 to correlate vulnerabilities and convert them into actionable incidents, reducing false positives since administrators can readily focus on the systems that are most vulnerable to an attack.

Availability
Symantec Vulnerability Assessment Tool costs HK$6,201 per server, and includes one year of maintenance, upgrade insurance and support, whereas workstation licenses cost HK$1,170 per user for 10 to 24 users, and HK$1,018 per user for 25 to 49 users. A minimum purchase of 10 units is required. For trialware, obtain licensing information or locate a reseller, visit http://enterprisesecurity.symantec.com or call +852 2528-6206.

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.

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FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including forecasts of future revenue and earnings, 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 December 31, 2002. Symantec assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release except as otherwise required by law.