Sermon software spyware, says Symantec.
Popular software used by Church of England clergy has been mislabelled as spyware by
Symantec
‘s
Norton
software.
The software, called ‘
Visual Liturgy
‘, is used by vicars for planning sermons and services, but after an update in early July they found a file in the package being flagged as part of the
SniperSpy
spyware suite. When worried prayers apparently fell on deaf ears at
Norton
support, church leaders were forced to advise their flocks to start ignoring warnings from their security software, setting a dangerous precedent.
Symantec
spokepeople, however, insist they addressed the false positive, and in the wake of media interest have confirmed to the makers of
Visual Liturgy
that the problem has been resolved.
‘We will, of course, be including the file in the clean set for the next round of VB 100% tests’, said John Hawes, Technical Consultant at Virus Bulletin. ‘That should show us whether
Symantec
has indeed repented and fixed the issue.’
Read the full story at
ZDNet
or at the
BBC
.
Check the original
statement from
Church House Publishing
, the makers of the software, urging users to bombard
Symantec
with complaints, and a
follow-up statement
regarding the communication problems between the two companies.
Posted on 04 August 2006 by
Virus Bulletin
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