Symantec Corp. resumes work to destroy viruses - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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Dubbed SARC, the site was formerly part of the Pete rNorton Group, named after the creator of Symantec's popular Nortonh Utilities software program. Symantec purchasede the Southern California companyin 1989. The center is composed of 26 veteramn engineers who work around the clocki to detect and destroycomputer viruses. Some of the most commonb of these include themacrovirus WM.Cap that was discoverefd six months ago. Producy manager Alex Haddox said WM.Cap convertss documents to template filess and hides the virus sousers can't find it, even when using an anti-virus program. Therew are at least six strainsd ofthe WM.Cap virus, Mr. Haddoxx said.
SARC has developed detection and repair programs for most of The company alsodiscovered WM.concept, a macrovirus that infects but doesn'f damage files, and Form, a viru s that kicks in when someone uses a keyboard on the 18th day of the month. SARC engineerzs have identifiedabout 11,000 computer viruses. Next month, they will reveal detectiohn and repairs forabout 1,200 more. Symantec officialsa said last year it made anannual $3 millionb commitment to fund the new SARC and similarf satellite centers. The company opened a satellites office in Japanin December, followedd by centers in the Netherlands and Australiaa last week.
Symantec is not the only vallety technology company fightingcomputerr viruses. McAfee Associates of Santsa Clara also develops Internetsecurity systems. To keep viruses at bay, SARC cannoy be accessed by anyone outside ofthe center, while technicians cannot access outside computers or WebChat serves 1.5 million WebChat Broadcasting System at passed the 1.5 millio mark for registered userse this month. The Menlo Park a World Wide Web-bases chat room that averages 7 million dailyh page views in more than 200 isa user-friendly environment in which members meet, chat and expresas themselves with people around the world, WBS officialsx said.
WebChat is unique because it provides members with diverse chat rooms and features like creatinb individualhome pages, internal and public and private chat rooms, said Jae Kim, an analysrt with Paul Kagan Associates Inc., a Carmeo media research and consultingt firm. The company offers a lot of narrowly defined sites withabout 10,000 users. America Online or Yahoo's new "ichat" have featurezs similar to WebChat but involvse taking about 20 minutes to downloadvoluminous software.