Security Center warning - Norton Antivirus

[Rich Bell]

The XP2 Security center is alerting that my computer may be at risk before
Norton Antivirus has finished loading. The alert goes away a few seconds
later, after the tray icon for Norton appears. Any ideas how to prevent
this? It there a registry entry that determines how long the security center
waits before checking?

 

[Admiral Q]

You have 2 choices: Live with it, or disable the security monitor all
together.

--
Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your service!
"Google is your Friend!"
www.google.com

***********************************************

 

[Bill Drake]

It is utterly normal and correct for that alert to be present for a few
seconds at startup. NAV does its own integrity-check of its AV
signature-database at startup -- to do so it needs a short period
of exclusive access to the signature-database files. As a result,
the XP2 security-alert will appear for a few seconds at startup.

As long as the message both *appears* and then *disappears*
things are perfectly OK.

If the message does not appear in the first place -- it *may* mean
that the security-monitor itself has been compromised.

If the message does not go away -- it *may* mean that the AV
software and/or signature-database has been compromised by
malware.


Things to note:

I have had one instance where the message did not go away as
a consequence of a virus-signature-database-update which required
a reboot to fully incorporate itself into the system. In that case, the
security advisory did not go away by itself and that prompted me to
reboot the machine "just in case". All was well after the reboot.

During the install process, NAV will show a dialog box that allows the
user to disable the security-advisory so they are not bothered by the
"nuisance" indication of the security-monitor at startup. Disabling the
security-monitor is enabled by default. IMO, this is a foolish design
decision because the "nuisance" indication is also proof that the SP2
security-monitor software is working *properly*.


Comment:

How can the user tell that the security monitor software carefully
incorporated at great trouble and expense into WXP-SP2 is actually
working properly if either the user or the default setting in the install
routine disables this carefully constructed feature added by the SP2
update? It doesn't make sense.


Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill