Open ports constant connection

After the latest patch update NIS 2014 keeps two ports open and connected to norton servers.  Is this by design?  I have a program that I always run to monitor all ports connections and this behavior did not exist until after this past update.  The two ports are on the main pc while our second pc only has one port held open with different port numbers.  So is NIS now connected to and keep connected to the cloud service 24/7. Previously my pc made the check to Norton servers like every 10-15 minutes or so.  I just want to confer whether this is indeed what the how the product is supposed to behave and whether it may pose a issue with other programs who may want access to the same ports that Norton now seems to have claimed exclusively.