McAfee hits Symantec with defamation suit

McAfee is suing Symantec for defamation to the tune of $1 billion, as the latest twist in the antivirus rivals? legal saga came to a head.

The law suit came one week after McAfee admitted that its products contained code from Symantec.

McAfee conceded two weeks ago that code from Symantec?s Norton Crash Guard had been present in its Virus Scan product line. But the antivirus specialist claimed that it was less than 100 lines of code and that it was not used.

At the time, Symantec issued a statement saying that McAfee had contradicted three of its earlier statements by revealing its flagship Virus Scan package contained Symantec code.

But McAfee hit back last week, claiming that Symantec?s statement was incorrect. McAfee also promptly filed a suit for defamation against the company.

Enrique Salem, Symantec vice president and chief technical officer, said: ?It is remarkable that McAfee attempts to downplay its culpability by claiming that even though the Symantec code is present in Virus Scan, it is not used.?

Symantec did not mention McAfee?s claim that the code is publicly available on the internet.

Both companies have made statements dismissing the other?s point of view and will go to court. ?We look forward to the jury trial,? said Salem.

McAfee was unavailable for comment.