Firewall STILL crashing! WHY!

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

I use to love Norton, I felt secure and safe with it. I had Norton 3.0 I believe, when my subscription ran out I rushed out to the store and bought Norton 5.0. After installing, I could instantly tell a difference with how buggy it was, the computer froze (briefly) and felt a lot more sluggish. I always hear how Norton slowed down your computer but I had no issues with 3.0 when I installed it so put that down to fussy people. I hated having to update it then restart then update then restart then update then restart, why couldn't it just update ONCE and restart once? Okay, irrelevent anyway, just adds to the annoyance. 

 

I really didn't like the new interface, for some reason it looked less fancy than the previous versions, but I put up with it. It didn't last for long however since I got to update to 6.0. The small period that I had 5.0 though, I found that quite often a little red cross would appear switching it all off. Simply clicking fix turned it back on, but that's not good enough! I felt like I had to be at the computer the whole time. Now, I'm not a dolt, I keep my computer pretty clean, I run CCleaner fairly often, spyware checkers etc and I never find anything, Norton however finds 6 tracking cookies, that's about it. Anyway, I put it down to an issue with my PC and gave Norton the benefit of the doubt and upgrading to 6.0 stopped the bug with it turning itself off for no reason (Computer could be idle and it would do it!) then I installed it on my laptop. My laptop has NOTHING on it since it's new, and yet, the same issue would have the firewall turning itself off. Had to upgrade, check for updates, restart, check for updates, restart, check for updates...restart etc etc

 

To the point! After all this stress of not feeling safe, and finally getting 6.0 running on both, the security history is filled with so much jargon and uneeded results it stresses me out. Yes yes, I'm not suppose to look at what norton is doing, but I do like to see what's going on, then having to check every single result. So while it's not switching itself off, I keep getting a lot more results, unauthorised access blocks etc etc. Once again, all my firewall settings had been lost, so I update them. Perhaps I did it too fast but like MANY other people, it now crashes, even when I click the programs tab. 

 

So I look up, find many threads on the subject and see that it's been going on since last fall (Almost a year!) with the same replies "We're hurrying to work on a fix!" and "To fix, uninstall and restall" So hey, uninstall, update to 6.0, check for new definitions and update, restart, update, restart, update, restart, add firewall entries all over again. 

 

Now, my hotmail got hacked the other day, here's the thing, it wasn't my junkmail account, it was my main account which I ONLY use for things like amazon. Nothing else. I do not go to dodgy sites, I do not EVER click links on forums unless I am 100% positive to where it leads (Still rarely do, an example would be from this forum from a tech) I do not download dodgy programs, or ever open anything without knowing what it is or first scanning it, I run no scripts on firefox, I clean my browsing data often enough, I try to keep everything uptodate. I scan my computer with norton and obviously, no one knows my passwords to things. So, I'm wonder how and why it got hacked.  The only thing I can think of was I ignored a flash update since I was in a rush and forgot about it, but that's a guess and still I do not feel safe anymore. I scan my computer (Both the quick scan and full scan are SO MUCH slower than 3.0 btw) which ended up taking hours upon hours, had to leave it over night) all finding...nothing. So, now I feel even more insecure. Scared to use amazon or my bank but there you go. I can't play around with my firewall settings because this still hasn't been fixed yet (Oh, I reinstalled btw, happened again!) and now, my latest issue with Norton!...

 

I've been playing DayZ, a Mod for Arma 2. Norton completely shuts down my internet half way through a game with unautorised access blocks. It spams me completely. I had 28 pages of it over an hour (I Usually get 1-2 pages a day of everything!) 

 

This is the spam.


Medium,Unauthorized access blocked (Access Process Data),Blocked,No Action Required,2012-06-26 14:29:38,C:\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\GAMES\STEAM\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\ARMA 2 OPERATION ARROWHEAD\EXPANSION\BETA\ARMA2OA.EXE,752,C:\Program Files (x86)\Norton 360\Engine\6.2.1.5\ccsvchst.exe

3548

 

And yet, I can't do anything about it! (Dayz is a Mod for Arma 2 which runs on steam) I can't access my firewall (I REALLY can't be bothered to reinstall and update everything AGAIN) and to be fair, I am getting sick of it. I usually keep my mouth shut, I don't like to cause a problem, but why, WHY hasn't this been a top priority and fixed yet! (The firewall) It's not a simple fact of it being a select few people, it's causing issues all over the place, some people don't even read forums so they're probably unaware of whats going on anyway, and frankly, "we're working on a fix" was great to hear 8 or so months ago, but is rather insulting now! 

 

That's my rant. Sorry but I had to let it out, I'm so peeved at this fix not happening. 

 

2

Hi Izziee,

 

The Hotmail account hack was almost certainly done without any involvement of your computer or malware.  Usually accounts are compromised through weak passwords or phishing - it is very rare that malware on a PC is used to compromise an email account these days.  You should follow these steps to secure your account:

 

http://ask-leo.com/email_hacked_7_things_you_need_to_do_now.html

 

The unauthorized access entries in your Norton History are due to your game trying to access Norton's process data.  Norton Product Tamper Protection will block this as it blocks all outside agents, even Windows processes, from accessing Norton's files and processes.  Your game should continue to work normally.  If it does not, then the issue is with the way the game software is written - a game should not need access to your security program in order to run.

 

The Firewall issue is still being worked on.  The problem has been identified, but the fix involves many different Norton components, so it is not something that can be easily and quickly fixed.

3

It doesn't run properly because when this happens I get around 28 pages of entries and it completely shuts down my internet just by flooding it so much. 

 

The game is a mod, made by a 3rd party, though if I understand it correctly, he's being asked to work on their 3rd installment of the game because of this mod, but it's a pretty popular game anyway and only in alpha stage (DayZ). However, it's not Dayz giving me the errors but Arma 2 which is the actual game that runs the mod. Once the internet dies I have to wait 5 minutes before it's managed to struggle to come back on and since the last time this has happened, I'm unable to play the game, it just keeps flooding me. I'm thinking I'll have to turn the tamper protection off which is something I don't want to do but if I have no control over what I can allow and not allow then I have no choice. Dayz isn't a small mod, it has 314,000 unique players, many of which bought Arma just for the mod. 

 

As for the firewall, I bought Norton specifically for that. I understand these things can take time, but this has nearly been a year. It's not a specific case, and it's a serious case. If I'm unable to configure my own firewall, what's the point in buying it? Sure, it "automatically works" but not when I want to block and/or allow something manually, which is a standard setting to most firewalls. Thanks for your reply anyway..

4

I realize it is not a consolation, but you are not alone in your frustration.

 

There are numerous other threads in the 360 forum with the problem.

 

All we get is an occasional post from a Symantec employee that looks like an attempt to pacify us, and of course the "choir" singing the praises.

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/NIS2012-crashing-with-changes-in-firewall/td-p/589474

 

I was using the 2013 Beta. The "custom rules" feature works in it, although it has a few quirks.

If you do not mind adding your rules, that would give you an option to add more rules and not have the firewall lay down.

 

The current build (133) requires a clean install of the product, it will not install over any previous versions and that would mean losing firewall rules.