In this paper, we analyze the algebraic immunity of symmetric Boolean functions. The algebraic immunity is a property which measures the resistance against the algebraic attacks on symmetric ciphers. We identify a set of lowest degree annihilators for symmetric functions and propose an efficient algorithm for computing the algebraic immunity of a symmetric function. The existence of several symmetric functions with maximum algebraic immunity is proven. In this way, we have found a new class of functions which have good implementation properties and maximum algebraic immunity.