CVE-2004-0920
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedSymantec Norton AntiVirus 2004, and earlier versions, allows a virus or other malicious code to avoid detection or cause a denial of service (application crash) using a filename containing an MS-DOS device name.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceSymantec Norton AntiVirus 2004 and earlier versions fail to properly handle filenames containing MS-DOS device names (such as CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, LPT1). This allows malware using these reserved names in filenames to evade detection by the antivirus scanner, and can also cause the application to crash, resulting in a denial of service.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data<= 2.1CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Partial
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Norton AntiVirus versionOpen Norton AntiVirus and navigate to Help > About, or right-click the Norton icon and select Open Norton AntiVirus > Help > About. Record the version number displayed.Affected if The installed version is 2.1 or earlier (any version <= 2.1)
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Confirm Auto-Protect is enabledOpen Norton AntiVirus, go to Options > Auto-Protect, and verify the Enable Auto-Protect checkbox is checked.Affected if Auto-Protect (real-time scanning) is turned on - this is the feature that would fail to scan files with reserved MS-DOS device names
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Verify Norton is runningCheck system tray for the Norton icon or open Task Manager and look for Norton processes (navapsvc.exe or similar) to confirm the antivirus is actively running.Affected if Norton AntiVirus is actively running with protection enabled
If Norton AntiVirus version 2.1 or earlier is installed and real-time scanning (Auto-Protect) is enabled, the environment is vulnerable to evasion via MS-DOS device name filenames.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade to a newer version of Norton AntiVirus that addresses this vulnerability. For legacy systems, implement additional file system monitoring to detect and flag files using reserved MS-DOS device names as potential obfuscation attempts.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2004-0920 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2004-0920 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data