Norton Internet Security 2006
1/7/2006

NIS 2006 and limited user accounts

Let's start by saying that our experience over the last year or so is that one of the keys to safe computing is to apply the concept of 'least privilege'. In other words, if someone does not need to be an administrator, then don't make them an admin, make them a limited user. This approach has been successful.

When we installed NIS 2006 we found that we were getting error messages when running as a limited user. Symantec's 'solution' is to just make everyone an admin per Norton AntiVirus: 30310001 tech doc. Read it for yourself "Solution 1: Add administrative rights to a limited user account".  They have to be kidding!

We found somewhat of a workaround. This is offered without any warranty. If you take this approach, you do so at your own risk. You can temporarily promote all of the user accounts to Admin accounts, log on and run all of the Norton Applications, then log out of the accounts and change them back to limited users. This seems to have some success.

You cannot prove a negative. In other words, it is almost impossible to prove that a machine is not infected. However, the machine in question has been running a firewall, using limited user accounts for most surfing, running anti spyware and came up clean with a rootkitrevealer scan.

NIS and scripting

When we purchase a security product, we want robustness on the order of an Abrams Battle Tank, we don't expect lace doilies. We have had major problems with scripting errors when accessing the NIS control panel on 2 out of the 3 machines where we installed NIS 2006. We ran the Microsoft scripting updates and re-registered all of the DLLs without success. We did find a workaround

Workaround to the scripting problem

Again, this is offered without warranty. Use it at your own risk.

Whenever we try to edit the manual program control as the normal administrative user on one of our machines, we get an "An error has occurred on this page message". The message says "Automation server can't create object", line 215, Char 5, res://nisplres.dll//programcontrol.htm, Do you want to continue running scripts on this page? If you say yes, it just sits there forever and never brings up the program control rules.

Great going.. Now we have a firewall that can't be configured.

We did find a temporary workaround though. We have another administrative user set up on the machine that we use mainly for troubleshooting. When we go in as that user, we can access all the NIS configuration pages. It is a bit of a pain but it is at least allowing us to be functional.

Customer Support

We spent a bit of time on the phone. Their solution was to either reinstall windows or reinstall service pack 2. We ended up doing a repair installation of Windows XP Home (After purchasing the OS for $200). The email support takes about 24 to 48 hours for a turn around. However, after several hours of effort (plus another 5 hours to rebuild the  system) we are still left with a less than functional anti virus/firewall app.

Alternatives

There aren't many established alternatives out there. We are considering purchasing McAfee and installing that instead of Norton unless Symantec tech support comes up with a solution to the scripting issue 

There are a number of companies providing Antivirus and Firewall software. The problem is finding a product that integrates well with your system, is effective and affordable. Keep in mind that some of the 'free for home use' applications might require registration and payment for home office or small business applications.

•  McAffee

• AVG antivirus by Grisoft

• PC Tools Antivirus

• F-Secure Antivirus

• Panda Titanium Antivirus

• Zonealarm Antivirus

• Avast Home Edition

• Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro 5.

One of the things that we will miss on a reinstall is the Antispam. It integrated beautifully with Outlook XP and was extremely effective. If you look at the cost of NIS's competition, factor in an antispam package if you will run one. It seems that the antispam is not included in some of the competition.

Summary

The results of our 3 pack install is that it is stable on one machine. Scoring a 30 is usually not a passing grade. It looks like we are going to have to purchase another app and try that. More than likely the licenses wont' be transferable to another machine. We'll check with Symantec's support on that.