SYDNEY, 5 September 2013 – Norton by Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the release of the latest versions of 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.
According to the Symantec Security Threat Report, web attacks increased 30 percent in 2012, driven by the easy availability of malware toolkits and the high frequency of unpatched vulnerabilities on websites.
“Consumers can be attacked even when they visit a legitimate website, putting their devices and personal information at risk,” said David Hall, Consumer Product Marketing Manager, Pacific Region, Symantec. “With the latest Norton releases, we are delivering the comprehensive security required to protect today’s devices against new and evolving threats, without impacting performance.”
What’s New and Improved
Each of the products’ five patented layers of protection saw many improvements to security, performance and usability. The key enhancements include:
- Advanced repair – Drawing on Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network, new advanced repair capabilities leverage a broader set of internet-connected resources to repair with greater consistency.
- Improved SONAR engine – This year the products have significantly improved the behavioural-based protection engine called SONAR, which operates on the premise that while the physical nature of malware changes, its behaviour often does not. As a result, SONAR now allows the latest products to discover and shut down malware that attempts to disguise its bad behaviour by operating inside legitimate Windows processes.
- SONAR-assisted remediation and clean-up – SONAR helps with the removal and clean-up of malware attempts by saving the evidence of the attack for later use by Norton’s repair technologies. This remediation helps to ensure that all traces of a malware attack are removed and a system is returned to its original state.
- Simpler setup and management – Users can quickly download and install the latest version of their product for their device type and subsequently ensure that all their devices are protected.
- Faster performance – Based on recent testing, compared with last year’s releases, Norton products have improved boot time by 15 percent, install speed by 10 percent and memory usage during scan by 100MBs, resulting in the fastest and lightest performance yet. (Source: PassMark, August 2013)
- Enhanced Norton Identity Safe – This product release brings a whole new look to Norton’s password management tool. It also includes improved form filling, with drag-and-drop functionality and full vault searches available directly from the toolbar to help manage passwords even more securely and conveniently.
Pricing and availability of the latest versions of Norton 360 Multi-Device [1] Norton 360, Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus will be available in Australia shortly.
In addition, Norton One will be updated with the features in the latest release of Norton 360. Customers with a valid product subscription are eligible to receive the latest product updates via the subscription service model. For more information, visit the Norton Update Centre at http://updatecenter.norton.com.
About Norton by Symantec
Norton protects the stuff that matters to consumers, across all aspects of their digital lives. Norton provides a range of security solutions including technologies for PCs and mobile devices, live tech support services and online backup. Like Norton on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NortonAU.