According to Secunia, the software's auto-protect function, which is designed to recognise and halt suspicious behaviour in real-time, contains an error that could allow a malicious user to disable it altogether.
"This can be exploited by an unprivileged user to force the auto-protection to be disabled... It can further be exploited to download and execute malicious files that normally would be caught by the antivirus program," the advisory warned.
Norton Internet Security 2004 is affected but Norton Internet Security 2004 Professional and Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2004 are also likely to be vulnerable.
Security researcher Daniel Milisic, who has been credited with discovering the problem, last week criticised Symantec's Norton AntiVirus on a security mailing list.
"Symantec should be publicly flogged for trying to sell this inferior AV software to home users, especially knowing they have a decently workable AV product in their Enterprise line... It's unbelievable that Symantec sells a product that operates this poorly," said Milisic.
ZDNet Australia contacted Symantec about the problem but the company refused to comment. A spokesperson told ZDNet Australia that the company would "know more in 24 hours".
I swear this has been happening for quite some time and not just with NAV! It happened to 2 clients of mine around 6 months ago.
There are plenty of viruses and adware junk that seem to be able to do this with ease.
That the incompetents at Symantec have only just figured this out is astounding. NAV is usless bloatware, but just like Telstra, they retain their market share by preying on the ignorance of the general public, who go with whatever company spends the most on advertising.
The free anti-virus scanner AVG (www.grisoft.com) consistently provides better protection than NAV and it won't cost the user a single red cent.