Hello all,

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been reading when I have time.

The IT staff at the organization where I work put out a memo saying that no one can use third party email (Hotmail, AOL, MSN, etc.), on-line game sites (Pogo, EA Games, Yahoo Games, etc.), or on-line shopping sites any more because they open the network to virus attacks. The memo says these sites allow "holes" for attacks, and that a "system wide" virus attack recently occurred because of the use of third party email. The client machines are all Windows 2000, anti-virus is Norton Corporate, and the email is through MS Exchange.

I thought that if Norton Corporate was configured properly it would protect against virii (sp?) no matter how they tried to come in. I read that with Norton 2003, as long as auto-protect was on, it protected against any intrusion by a recognized virus and I assume Norton Corporate is similar. I understand that third party email will not come in through the company's email server, but I thought Norton would still watch for virus signatures.

I'm not really sure how on-line games work, but I assume some type of P2P connection is established (?), but shouldn't Norton still catch a virus that tried to get in?

Finally, I do not see how using on-line shopping sites "open gateways to the system that allow for the same types of attacks" (from the memo).

I searched on Google and here and didn't find complete answers to these questions. Am I really missing something here or is the memo not entirely accurate?

I'm trying to understand this, so if I'm just missing it I'd appreciate any feedback, but if my ideas are right I'd be happy for some reinforcement too.