Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[bgg]

Something else I just noticed and don't understand:

I saw that Norton did a quick scan today which was not initiated by me.  I did another one & it picked up 30 cookies.   

Shouldn't these cookies have been removed by the previous automatic quick scan that was done?

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

From something I've seen in another thread/context it might have been an idle scan and perhaps like the scan when you are not logged in at all it tests and reports but does not remove.

See what others think.

[Qi]

Hi bgg

This is an expected behavior, each user has their own cookie storage and the scan only finds cookies relevant to the user initiating the scan.

Message Edited by Qi on 04-16-2009 12:56 PM

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

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Qi wrote:

Hi bgg

This is an expected behavior, each user has their own cookie storage and the scan only finds cookies relevant to the user initiating the scan.

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Thanks for confirming that -- it does seem safer that way!

Suppose one logs on as the top level administrator -- what then? Would it then scan the entire computer?

What about other files that are associated with an individual user, or are in locations like

C:\Documents and Settings\Dottie\My Documents\My Pictures

when I, User = Hugh, run the scan which is normal.

[Qi]

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huwyngr wrote:

Suppose one logs on as the top level administrator -- what then? Would it then scan the entire computer?

What about other files that are associated with an individual user, or are in locations like

C:\Documents and Settings\Dottie\My Documents\My Pictures

when I, User = Hugh, run the scan which is normal.

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If one logs on as an administrator, yes, full system scan will scan the entire computer.  So other files accoicated with another user will be scanned, for example: "C:\Documents and Settings\Dottie\My Documents\My Pictures"

With that said, cookie scanning is an exception.  The current implementation is that the scan only finds cookies relevant to the user initiating the scan.  This is due to a limitation in the Windows API.  Also we feel it is reasonable to have each user to clean up their own cookie storage, instead of allowing administrator to clean up all user's cookies. 

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

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Qi wrote:

If one logs on as an administrator, yes, full system scan will scan the entire computer.  So other files accoicated with another user will be scanned, for example: "C:\Documents and Settings\Dottie\My Documents\My Pictures"

With that said, cookie scanning is an exception.  The current implementation is that the scan only finds cookies relevant to the user initiating the scan.  This is due to a limitation in the Windows API.  Also we feel it is reasonable to have each user to clean up their own cookie storage, instead of allowing administrator to clean up all user's cookies. 

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Thanks for the detailed explanation which is really valuable.

As indicated earlier I think the decision is right about cookies and users -- and I think Windows' DiskClean behaves like this.

Forgive me for one more question: I use the User account of Hugh in XP so there is the not normally visible Administrator lurking away in the backroom. But I elevate my privileges to the maximum.

Does Norton treat me as Administrator or is there a hidden flag that it detects for the "real" administrator?

TIA.

[bgg]

Qi, thank you very much for the excellent explanation.  Is this new in NIS 2009 because I am sure cookies for all users appeared after one scan so I didn't do 2 scans? 

This has been very helpful.

[Qi]

Hi bgg,

I believe this is not new in NIS 2009.  The limitaton of the Windows API has always been there and we have not changed the logic for cookie scanning in 2009.  I just did a quick test with NAV 2008 and the behavior is the same.

[Qi]

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huwyngr wrote:

Forgive me for one more question: I use the User account of Hugh in XP so there is the not normally visible Administrator lurking away in the backroom. But I elevate my privileges to the maximum.

Does Norton treat me as Administrator or is there a hidden flag that it detects for the "real" administrator?

TIA.

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Norton will have the same access rights as what you have. So for example if there are files registries which you can not access, Norton will not be able to scan these places.  If you only have read access but not write access to certain files, Norton will be able to scan them, but if infection is found it will not be able to remove the threats. 

Message Edited by Qi on 04-17-2009 11:46 AM

[huwyngr Norton Fighter]

OK -- that would seem to deal with the infection scanning since I give the User Hugh full NTFS and Sharing rights.

I reaqlly appreciate you clarifying all this for us.