Symantec's Norton 2010 products use cloud based intelligence

Recently, Symantec brought a completely unique approach to online security with Norton 2010. The Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010 leverage a new model of security, codenamed Quorum, to attain unmatched detection of new malware and advance far beyond traditional signature and behaviour-based detection.

I managed to catch up with Gaurav Kanwal, Country Sales Manager – India, Consumer Products & Solutions, Symantec, to find out more about this release. Of course, Symantec was kind enough to share a copy of the software.

Norton 2010 products and their unique approach
Cybercrime has surpassed illegal drug trafficking as a criminal money maker. Cybercriminals use phony emails, fake websites and online ads to steal everything you’ve got. Your money, your identity, even your reputation.

To do that, cybercriminals are furiously writing and then rewriting new and unique pieces of malware, hoping to stay under the radar of threat signatures for as long as possible. Symantec security researchers see more than 200 million attacks on average every month, the vast majority of which are never-seen-before threats and delivered via the web.

Kanwal said: “The reality is, the signature approach and other traditional methods of security are not keeping pace with the sheer number of these threats being created by online criminals. Traditional security solutions are obsolete today.

“The faster, safer and smarter Norton 2010 is anything but traditional. Norton 2010 harnesses the power of millions of users united against cybercrime and gives consumers the power to ‘deny’ digital dangers and ‘allow’ a safe online experience.

“Norton 2010 achieves this by leveraging a new and unique model of reputation-based security, codenamed Quorum, to attain unmatched detection of new malware and advance far beyond traditional signature and behaviour-based detection.

“In short, the code name Quorum takes the greatest weapon cyber criminals have in their arsenal – their ability to generate unique pieces of malware at an alarming rate – and turns that very weapon against them.”

The other key and unique feature in the Norton 2010 products is the Norton Insight family of technologies, which uses extensive online intelligence systems to proactively protect the PC and keep users informed of the security and performance impact of files and applications that they encounter in their everyday online experience. The suite consists of:

Norton Download Insight – Uses extensive online intelligence systems leveraging reputation to proactively protect your PC. Analyses and reports on the safety of new files and applications before users install and run them.

Norton System Insight – Provides features and easy-to-understand system information to help keep PCs performing at top speed. Automatic and on-demand application optimisation rejuvenates application performance. Provides a view of recent events on the computer, providing the information required to research and analyze PC issues. Performance graphs help pinpoint what’s causing a computer to slow down.

Norton Threat Insight – Provides details on threats that have been detected on your PC – including useful information on where it came from (the URL) and when it was initially encountered.

Norton Insight Network – Leverages a cloud-based approach unique to Symantec. Based on the technology codenamed Quorum, it takes cloud-based security beyond traditional blacklists and whitelists. It uses a statistical analysis of file attributes based on billions of scans on millions of computers to identify the trust level of a file. This way Norton can identify files to be trustworthy or untrustworthy that would otherwise fall into the grey area of the unknown with only traditional security methods.

Additional key technologies:

SONAR 2 – Sophisticated second-generation behavioural security technology that detects entirely new threats based on their suspicious actions, without the need for traditional fingerprints. Leverages data from the reputation cloud, firewall, network communications (IPS), and file attributes such as location on the PC, origin information, etc., to decide when to detect a program as a threat.

New Antispam (Norton Internet Security only) – Powerful Enterprise-grade spam blocking engine helps keep you clear of unwanted email and safe from email-based scams and infections. 20 percent more effective than the previous engine and requires no training.

Norton Safe Web (Norton Internet Security only) – Website rating service that annotates Google, Yahoo! and Bing.com search results with site safety ratings to warn users about sites that may pose a danger to them. It also includes ecommerce safety ratings to help users make safer online shopping decisions.

OnlineFamily.Norton (Norton Internet Security only) – Norton Internet Security 2010 users can opt to try a subscription to OnlineFamily.Norton, a new Web-based service that keeps parents in the loop on their kids online lives and fosters communication about what’s appropriate and inappropriate behaviour on the Internet.