Two people - one is me - report this problem began after using cccleaner. I have a win 8 laptop about 2 months old that worked great prior to using cccleaner. I ran cccleaner as it was right out of the box, so to speak.
The issue is reported in this norton forum thread. Norton states norton security is running fine, but Window's Action Center's loses the ability to read if security is running so it red flags that security programs are not running (not just norton). cccleaner seems to have broken the tie.