Symantec warns of severe vulnerability with pcAnywhere product

Security firm Symantec has warned its customers of high severity vulnerabilities in its pcAnywhere product.

In a notice published on its webiste this week, the firm admitted that hackers are currently able to gain remote access to a system through the software, and use the vulnerability to run malicious code on a user's machine.

"Symantec pcAnywhere is susceptible to local file tampering elevation of privilege attempts and remote code execution attempts. It is possible to run arbitrary code on a targeted system," the notice says.

Symantec has already made a patch available for pcAnywhere, which is designed to offer secure remote access to computers and other devices.

The firm has advised users to disable the software if it is not currently in use, and to only allow it to operate through VPN tunnels across the corporate network if it is critical to the business.

Earlier this month source code for the firm's flagship Norton AntiVirus product was leaked to the internet from an Indian hacking group.

In a statement at the time, Symantec said that the leak did not put its customers at risk.

"Symantec can confirm that a segment of its source code used in two of our older enterprise products has been accessed, one of which has been discontinued.

"The code involved is four and five years old."