Recently I've noticed that Norton Security Suite (which I think has N360 as its base) is running background tasks while I'm actively using my computer. This seems to happen when I log on as one account and then switch to another. (I use separate accounts for my ordinary use and administrator functions.) If I log out of the first account, I think the background tasks run immediately. If I switch accounts and stay in the second account long enough for the first to timeout, background tasks start to run when the timeout expires. (This may only happen after I come out of sleep mode; I should check that.) It's as if Norton is only monitoring the first session that starts after boot. Is this normal behavior?
My system: WinXP SP3 with Norton Security Suite 20.2.0.19.
Windows Firewall running in the background (to monitor successful connections).
No other security software installed.
Note: There are some signs I have a rootkit infection, but I haven't found anything that can detect it (including NPE and NBRT). I had a rootkit infection Norton didn't detect two months ago (DOS/Alureon or Trojan.Pihar.C) but Kaspersky seemed to kill it. The only evidence I have that anything is still in there is that processes that I closed long ago don't shut down as they should, and are hidden from Task Manager. They only show up when I log off--they do terminate then, but not until after I get the message box saying the process isn't terminating fast enough.