Norton Protection Blog

According to the 2014 Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, which examines the data from more than 41.5 million attack sensors and records thousands of events per second, spear phishing is not dead – it’s merely evolving.

By Satnam Narang, Symantec Security Response expert.

They’re both selling by the millions, with no sign of slowing down, but there are big differences between the iOS and Android mobile platforms – not least in the array of security threats they face, and the ways in which they attempt to mitigate them. You’re never totally secure when using a mobile device on either platform, but should the security conscious be choosing one over the other?

The Threat Level

Unlike April Fools, which only happens once a year, scammers make a living off of fooling users 365 days a year. Here are a number of tricks that scammers use.

March 31 marks World Backup Day! What is backup? It's a second copy of all your most important files like financial documents, family photos, videos and more. While it's best to backup your files regularly now is as good a time as ever.  Here are a few more tips for digital spring cleaning! Read on. 

Five easy ways to get started on digital spring cleaning:

The clock is ticking down on Windows XP. Microsoft will end technical assistance for the 12-year-old operating system on April 8 and effectively stop delivering automatic updates and security patches to Windows XP users. Although many consumers, small businesses and even large enterprises have already transitioned to newer and more secure systems, an estimated 30 million desktop operating systems still run on Windows XP today and could be left vulnerable after April 8. 

After April 8, Microsoft will no longer release updates designed to fix bugs that cybercriminals use to gain access to the operating system (OS). Any newly discovered vulnerabilities in the operating system will effectively become an open invitation to an attacker to gain control of a computer running Windows XP. Symantec strongly recommends that Windows XP customers upgrade to a current OS as soon as possible, but will continue to support Windows XP SP3 systems for the foreseeable future.

Norton Browser Protection       

One of the lesser known capabilities in our Norton protection products is a feature that protects you from attack when you surf the web. We call this feature Norton Browser Protection and I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing with you what it does and why we believe it has become a critical part of protecting you from attack as you surf the web.

What’s the problem that Browser Protection addresses? 

The rise of the smartphone has brought countless technological benefits that make our daily lives easier in so many ways, and one of the biggest has been the freedom of mobile banking. Gone are the days of waiting in a busy branch on a Saturday afternoon to transfer money into your savings account, or calling an automated number to check your balance.

The world of business has to move with the times, and right now that means it makes a lot of sense to allow staff to use whatever devices they have for work. BYOD – bring your own device – is here to stay, and if implemented properly can be a real boon to the productivity and happiness of your employees. They get to use a device they’re comfortable with, and you get to slash your hardware deployment costs.

Protecting your financial information is important, and it doesn’t have to be difficult. When on-the-go tools such as mobile banking apps make managing financial tasks easy, you should also take precautions to manage the risk of accessing sensitive financial information anytime, anywhere. This Credit Education Month, practice safe online habits with a few easy tips.

Taking Basic Security Precautions

Social media accounts are powerful tools in the wrong hands. We’ve recently seen hackers take over the Twitter accounts of media outlets and large corporations, using them for anything from basic spam to drawing attention to global issues. Your own accounts might seem too small to tempt scammers, but even with just a few followers your information is a valuable commodity. Read on for tips to stay safe on social networks.

Use unique passwords for each social network

GPS devices have made driving so much simpler in recent years, and it’s hard to find a driver today who does not use one for long journeys. But what are the downsides to being constantly connected when driving? While you’re getting vital information to help you reach your destination, what vital information of yours is flowing the other way?

As a tourist in a foreign city, especially a chilly one hosting hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world this weekend, it’s probably wise for you to learn a few key phrases to protect yourself, like:

Спасите! (Spasite!) “Help!”
Пожар! (Požar!) “Fire!”
Стой! (Stoj!) “Stop!”

There’s a reason why Facebook is celebrating it's 10th birthday today!

Because you should be spending your time enjoying the festivities, here are a few security tips for Lunar New Year.

Wishing you a fun, safe celebration and year ahead from Norton! Will you capture irreplaceable memories this Lunar New Year? Try Norton Zone for free, a safer and easier way to share files with family and friends.

Mobile technologies sure-to-trend in 2014 include "smart" connected devices and wearable gadgets. With 2.88 billion people reached by the #CES2014 hashtag, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, this new tech is growing in popularity in no time. Watch the best-of from Norton at CES.

Are you ready to tech the halls? Mobile tech like smartphones and tablets top many gift lists and wishlists this year. In fact, 74% of U.S. holiday shoppers intend to give consumer electronics as presents (source: CEA).

SONAR is a behavioral security engine that is at the heart of our antimalware defenses. With the unprecedented growth in malware that has been observed over the last few years, an effective security product has to able to distinguish a bad piece of new binary/software from a good one without the need for a fingerprint.  SONAR, first introduced a couple years ago into the Norton products, has been re-written for the 2010 products to keep pace with today’s threat landscape and take advantage of other new capabilities, such as our Quorum reputation services.

The season for giving is here, a time for spreading cheer and presents to those near and dear. Cyber Monday has become a popular way to shop for holiday deals. With mobile devices being the choice gift of the season and a convenient way to shop too. In fact, 58 percent of U.S. consumers used smartphones and 42 percent used tablets to shop during Cyber Monday 2012 according to IBM.

Hi! 

I'm Mike Romo and I am the product manager for Norton AntiVirus 12 for Mac and Norton Internet Security 5 for Mac. I am really excited to get this opportunity to welcome you to our beta program and want to be the first to thank you for your interest in our latest products.

Long time Norton users might have noticed that it has been a long time since we have been able to deliver Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security for Mac at the same time. There are a few reasons for this:

By Gerry Egan, senior director, product management, Symantec Corp.

Today, we are excited to announce the release of the latest versions of our award-winning Norton core security products, which keep consumers safe from evolving threats in their daily online lives. The latest versions improve on the industry’s leading protection and performance, and are designed for compatibility with the new features of Windows 8.1.

By Alejandro Borgia, senior director, product management, Symantec Corporation

For customers looking for the best security technology for their needs, it’s critical to have access to reliable and meaningful information so they can make smart decisions to stay protected in today’s complex threat landscape.  As an industry, we face a challenge in that testing security products is a highly technical and time-consuming process, and there are shortcomings in the approach of some tests that result in data that is misleading at best. 

I was surfing through some security news this weekend and ran into an interesting article on SecurityFocus. The article references a report that states that the reported damages from cybercrime and fraud rose by more then 20% from 2006 to 2007.

In this four-part blog series, I have briefly reviewed some of the myths we’ve heard about Windows 8 security improvements and point out where deficiencies lie. We believe security should still very much be a concern for anyone running the new Windows 8 OS. Visit this earlier post to learn more about the series.

In today's post, I'll address Myth #4: SmartScreen will keep users out of trouble.

Everyone here at Norton is extremely excited about this new release of the Norton security products! This is the first time we are launching all three products at once: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Internet Security, and Norton 360. In this two-part blog post, I plan on going through some of the new features and improvements we have made. The first part will cover some of the things we’ve done on the protection side, while the second part will cover the performance and experience side of things.

In our 2013 products, many changes/enhancements were added to the Norton IdentitySafe Toolbar. They are summarized as:

Feature

New/Existing/Change

Remarks

Targeted Products

Changes with Local Vault Feature

New

Local Vault feature is removed for our new users of 2013 product, users migrating from 2012 or older versions will still have local vault

NIS, N360

Home Page(button on toolbar)

New

Bridging the Gap

Norton Power Eraser is the latest Norton Recovery tool. It is being released at the same time as Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus 2011. The tool is aimed at detection and clean-up of “0-day” threats (0-day threats are those that take advantage of a newly discovered hole in a program or operating system before the developers have made a fix available – or before they are even aware that a hole exists.)

Now that the latest version of Norton Internet Security and Norton 360 are released, you may have noticed some improvements to the Norton Toolbar - the Share button and the Online Vault. Below is an explanation of the changes, and why we wanted them in the product.

Why Online Vaults?

The Online Vault is Convenient.

- It provides access to your most sensitive data from any iOS, Android, PC, or Mac device and from *any* device with a web browser.

- It automatically synchronizes data across devices.

In this four-part blog series, I briefly review some of the myths we’ve heard about Windows 8 security improvements and point out where deficiencies lie. We believe security should still very much be a concern for anyone running the new Windows 8 OS.

Visit this earlier post to learn more about the series.

Myth #3: Changes to the Windows 8 boot sequence make it secure.

In part two of this four-part blog series, I'll continue to review some of the myths we’ve heard about Windows 8 security improvements and point out where deficiencies lie. We believe security should still very much be a concern for anyone running the new Windows 8 OS.

Visit this earlier post to learn more about the series.

Myth #2: Windows 8 is safer because all apps are sandboxed from the rest of the system.

Leading up to Microsoft’s launch of the new Windows 8 operating system, there has been a lot of media chatter about what the new operating system means for security. Specifically, folks want to know whether users will be more secure on this new platform. Let’s examine more closely a few of the claims we’re hearing.

It has always been in the interest of malware authors to hide their malware on an infected machine.  They don’t want to make it easy for security vendors to find and remove their files.  Rootkits are one of the most sophisticated methods malware authors use to stay undiscovered. 

We are excited to announce the Beta launch of Norton Identity Safe Standalone. Norton Identity Safe takes away the pain of having to remember multiple passwords and securely stores important information such as credit cards numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. Please visit https://identitysafe-beta.norton.com/ to try the Beta.

Overview

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. 

When Steve Jobs died this week, I found out via my Twitter feed. I was working on my Mac and putting together a presentation discussing our plans to continue innovating on the Apple platforms - I had just dropped in a graphic of Apple's new iPhone 4S.

If you’ve been keeping up with Norton products, you probably already know that Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2012 included new capabilities that gave you the option to store your Identity Safe Vault (passwords, credit card numbers, and other data) in the Norton cloud and share it between all your computers with Norton Internet Security 2012. Up until now, however, your Vault could only be accessed from a computer with Norton Internet Security 2012 installed.

Hi, I’m Joe Keehnast, product manager for Norton Anti-Theft, a new Beta service from Norton.  Norton Anti-Theft is a new service that gives you a way to track the devices you have, protect the data they house, and get them back in the event that they are ever lost or stolen. Protecting users from the threat of physical device loss and theft is somewhat of a new area for us and we believe this new service is a great addition to our Norton Everywhere vision of protecting you and your data on any device.

We at Norton are very excited to share the Beta release for Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus 2012 products with you. Below are descriptions of the new features and great enhancements provided with this release.

Protection

2012 introduces several new technologies to combat emerging threats.

Today we’re sharing the exciting update that we’re taking Norton DNS for PC users out of beta. As you may recall, Norton DNS was launched in May as part of our Norton Everywhere announcement, which aims to take our consumer business beyond the PC. Since that launch, Norton DNS has gained more than 250,000 beta users from 112 different countries.

Today, the Norton team is launching an exciting new beta offering called Norton Safe Web, a Web site rating service that makes it easy for users to differentiate safe sites from malicious ones. Once downloaded, the beta will provide visual site ratings within everyday search results from top search sites like Google, Yahoo! and Live Search- so you can keep using your preferred search tool and don't have to take any extra steps. Additionally, due to the nature of Web threats such as drive-by-downloads, it will also warn users before they visit a site that contains malicious content.

If you watch television in North America, you’re probably familiar with the concept of summer “reruns.” Many television networks and production studios go on hiatus during the late spring and summer months, and don’t produce new shows. To fill the airwaves, TV networks resort to rebroadcasting old shows, known as “reruns.”

We’re excited to share with you that we have reached another major milestone with Norton DNS. As mentioned in a recent press release update on our Norton Everywhere initiative, we’ve just opened BETA testing of our new Web Content Filtering service within Norton DNS!   

If you've recently purchased one of the 2009 Norton products, you may have noticed that this year, it came with something new - the Norton Recovery Tool.

To avoid confusion between the Norton Removal Tool (NRT) and the Norton Recovery Tool, I will instead refer to the solution as the Norton Recovery Disc (NRD).

For many of our users, this tool will never play a part in their security software experience, but for those who need it, it can be a life saver.

So what is the Norton Recovery Disc, and when would you ever need to use it?

Our gamers get set up as the main course in an all-you-can-eat human buffet...