Something strange is going on across the Internet. Some Norton Anti-Virus users are receiving pop-up messages alerting them about an application called PIFTS.exe that is trying to connect to a server. But what is PIFTS.exe? Why does it need to access the Internet? What is it trying to access? What connection does it have to Norton (or Symantec, the company that produces Norton-branded products)?

As of right now, we don’t have many answers to these questions. What we do know is that it appears to be linked to a Norton update cycle. Whether Symantec is responsible for the application or not is still not known. Nor do we know what the application’s purpose is. All we know is that the application appears to connect the user’s computer to a remote server.

To make matters more confusing, it appears that inquiries posted by Symantec customers to the official Norton forums have been removed.