Norton Protection Blog - Page 2

Symantec Senior Development Manager Gavin Anderson explains Norton SafeWeb Technology:

We’re excited to tell you about the new and improved version of Norton Safe Search, now available as part of the Norton Internet Security 2010 public beta. Norton Safe Search takes the site ratings provided by Norton Safe Web a step further by delivering a fully customized search results page with built-in security features such as filtering out unsafe sites, an interstitial warning page, Privacy Safeguard, and other options such as allowing users to display only safe shopping sites. Read more...

Gerry Egan, Product Manager for Symantec, explains the new Reputation-based security technology in the upcoming Norton 2010 product release.

The message might have come in early yesterday on your Twitter feed, "Want to know whos stalking you on twitter!?: http://twitviewer.net/" You might have clicked the link to visit the website. It all happened so fast, the fabulous offer (heck yeah, I want to know who the last 200 people are to look at my Twitter profile!) and the large scale distribution of the "tweet". Even seasoned journalists who should always wear their cynical and world-weary thinking caps fell for it. Read more...

There's evidence that the Conficker botnet (oh, did you really think they distributed those millions of bots without a plan to monetize them?) is now being used on a "for hire" basis. A story from the UK referencing a new report from Cisco, states that malware called Waledec is being distributed via Conficker's millions of infected computers. Waledec uses your system to send out spam and spread itself to other computers. Before you pull your hair out in frustration, just make sure you've got an up-to-date copy of Norton Internet Security or another comprehensive security product on your computers. Check your kid's computers including any new netbooks you've received and scan your USB or thumb drives for signs of infection. Read more...

Symantec Architect and Distinguished Engineer Sourabh Satish discusses an enhanced feature for Norton Internet Security 2010 - SONAR 2:

You might have heard a few things about a vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer this week. This is otherwise known as a “zero day” because it was found and hasn’t been patched by Microsoft at the time of discovery. Read more...

Symantec Development Manager Viral Mehta shares a new feature of Norton Internet Security 2010 -- Download Insight:

Welcome to the Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010 Public Beta! We’re really excited about his year’s version of Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010. We’ve made significant improvements to our existing features, as well as added a few new ones. We’ve also included support for Windows 7, the new upcoming version of Microsoft’s popular operating system. To access the Public Beta build, simply navigate to Norton Beta Center and select Norton Internet Security 2010 or Norton AntiVirus 2010. Read more...

A new wave of phishing attacks on Facebook users is underway. You'll remember the story from several months back of someone whose login credentials were stolen and then the crook used that Facebook access to swindle the victim's friends out of thousands of dollars. The current effort resembles that one, in that a compromised account sends a malicious link to friends. The friends click on the link and are taken to a site that looks just like a Facebook login page. Providing the criminals with their login and password can sometimes injure the victim beyond the damage to their social network. Read more...

We’ve been hearing a lot about cloud computing lately. Seems like just about anything you can tuck away into the clouds gets better, or so the story goes, since it allows everyone to access it from anywhere and harness the power of humongous databases full of useful information, among other benefits. Sure enough, the recent RSA conference had its fair share of hype on cloud computing and it has been mentioned to do everything from change security as we know it to solving the imminent swine flu pandemic. On the heels of RSA, a new “cloud antivirus” (AV) solution has been introduced which has brought media attention to cloud-based malware protection to a fever pitch. Given all the chatter on the topic, I thought I would provide my own forecast (of sorts) for cloud-based AV. Read more...

There's a lot of talk about vulnerabilities in Safari, but what does it mean? Read more...

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Zombies!!!! Read more...

Ever had one of those days? You really intended for things to go right, but they didn’t. And they didn’t simply whimper out of existence, but left large, smoking holes in the living room carpet. That was this Tuesday. In truth, it began on Monday evening around 4:30pm Pacific when we released a patch, the infamously named “pifts.exe”... Read more...

There have been a few questions around PIFTS.exe in the past 24 hours. What is it? Where did it come from? Is it safe? How is Symantec addressing it? Here we continue to address this diagnostic patch that Symantec released yesterday and why it caused such a stir. Read more...

A new MMORPG guild celebration gone wrong... Read more...

N00b FPS gamer gets pwned by his antivirus and blows the mission for the entire team... Read more...

I haven't made a post on here in a while, and there's a good reason. I've been keeping my head down, working hard with my teammates on Norton Online Family. Now that the beta has been released you can see the fruits of our labor for yourselves. Read more...

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Symantec surveys gamers to find out, the European Network and Information Security Agency publishes a report about risks in Massively Multiplayer Online/Virtual Worlds and we take a look at what can happen when a member of your guild uses the wrong antivirus. Read more...

The most recent Mac trojan horse make life difficult for Mac software pirates trying to get a free copy of iWork '09. Read more...

Mike Romo visits what could be the last MacWorld and discusses the history of the show and the ramifications of Apple's decision to make this year their last.

Email, cell phones, Facebook and now Twitter all have something in common: they are being used by fraudsters for phishing attacks. If you are a Twitter subscriber you should be aware of these recent phishing efforts and how to protect yourself. You may even have received a warning from Twitter in the past few days. Read more...

No more performance hassles with your computer Read more...

In January of this year, Symantec became a founding member of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO). Symantec and about 40 of the leading academics, reviewers, testers and vendors in the security industry joined forces to form the organization dedicated to helping improve the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware technology testing. Since then, the first two official documents for the AMTSO have been adopted and published. The next step will be to put these principles into practice. We’re now working on a process to Review the Reviews - a potentially very controversial thing to do. Read on to learn my personal views on how I think this process should be conducted.