Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007, Norton Internet Security 2007

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Symantec says it has launched Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007, Symantec's security applications that have been enhanced in technology and performance to protect users from today's evolving online threats. Norton AntiVirus 2007 is a solution from Symantec that gives users protection against viruses, spyware and related risks. Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007 is a security suite that includes the antivirus and antispyware protection of Symantec's Norton AntiVirus and safeguards against the latest online dangers by providing sophisticated new phishing protection, an enhanced firewall, and defense against software vulnerabilities.

Part of the changing threat landscape is the fact that virus writers are rapidly creating variations of existing malicious code rather than developing entirely new threats. Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 addresses this growing trend by delivering potent new technology that blocks attacks from entire worm and virus families without requiring individual signatures for each new threat. Leveraging newly developed security technology that detects these virus and worm families, Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 now provides proactive protection for users even before a new worm or virus is created and released. Norton AntiVirus' defenses are kept current with protection updates delivered daily.

In addition, Symantec's Norton AntiVirus has been strengthened so that it can find new types of viruses that use rootkits to hide themselves from security software. This patent-pending technology detects camouflaged threats at all system levels, including the application, user mode, and kernel level. Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 also incorporates enhanced scanning capabilities to ensure that high-risk spyware is detected and removed prior to installation. An improved and faster full system scan leverages foreground and background throttling modes giving users the option to move scanning to the background, requiring less processing power and letting them continue working on their computer without a major performance impact.

Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007 includes all the features found in Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 and enhances its detection, blocking, and removal tools with innovative transaction security technology that protects consumers against the latest online attacks. The new phishing protection feature safeguards users from online identity theft by combining lists of known phishing Web sites with advanced heuristic technology to help safeguard users from visiting fraudulent Web pages. This sophisticated fraud detection technology allows users to enjoy zero-hour protection against known and unknown phishing sites. As a result, users are protected - even when they are the first visitors to a fraudulent site.

The Intrusion Prevention feature in Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2007 offers protection against recently discovered vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and other popular applications. These security holes can be shielded by Norton Internet Security much faster than it typically takes a vendor to release a patch to fix the problem. In fact, Symantec's most recent Internet Security Threat Report noted that on average, virus writers are able to start exploiting these new security holes approximately six days after the disclosure of a vulnerability. With Norton Internet Security 2007, viruses, worms and hackers attempting to infect or invade a person's computer through these vulnerabilities are immediately blocked from ever getting on the system. Users are now able to patch their operating system and other applications on their own schedule, yet remain safe.

Norton Internet Security's enhanced firewall addresses one of the greatest frustrations users experience with current Internet security solutions - confusing firewall alerts. Most firewall applications today require users to decide whether to block or allow software on their computer from connecting to the Internet. Few users have the expertise or the interest in making these decisions. The enhanced firewall in Norton Internet Security 2007 automatically configures itself to allow good applications yet block spyware, viruses, worms, crimeware and hackers from stealing sensitive information from the user's computer. The result is a smart firewall that provides much more effective security and does not require users to make complex security decisions.

In internal performance tests both Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007 delivered significant performance enhancements in year-over-year product comparisons in the areas of memory usage, boot time, scan speed, user interface launch speed, and HTTP download speed. Additionally, Norton Internet Security 2007 outpaced the industry average results in performance tests against nine competitive Internet Security products. Key findings from the internal product performance review include:
- Less Memory Usage - Size of working set memory for Norton Internet Security 2007 is only 10-15MB - approximately 2-3x less than the competitor's average
- Faster Scans - Norton Internet Security 2007 runs a full scan on a 1GB file set in 2:15 (mm:ss) - faster than the average scan time of 2:49 (mm:ss) for tested competing products. Scans 30-35% faster than Norton Internet Security 2006
- Faster Boot Time - The average boot time impact for tested competing products was 20 seconds -Norton Internet Security 2007 impact was only 14 seconds. Systems boot 5-10% faster than with Norton Internet Security 2006
- Faster UI Response - The user interface in Norton Internet Security 2007 launches in under 1 second (following initial launch), about 2 times faster than the competitor's average.

Norton Internet Security 2007 is designed to work in concert with the most popular home networking equipment, complementing their security features to provide even greater levels of protection. In addition, an enhanced network detection component automatically provides users with separate security policies for the networks that they connect to. By automatically configuring the security settings for the type of network they connect to, Norton Internet Security customers can take full advantage of their home networks and stay fully protected when connecting to more dangerous public networks.

Viewing security status has never been clearer with the newly designed streamlined user interface of the Norton Protection Center for Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007. Additionally, overall computer status is always visible via the Norton Status icon on the taskbar or the Windows system icon tray.

Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007 are backed by Symantec Security Response, a team of dedicated intrusion experts, security engineers, virus hunters, and global technical support teams that work in tandem to provide extensive coverage for enterprise businesses and consumers. Symantec Security Response provides customers with comprehensive, global, 24x7 Internet security expertise to guard against today's complex Internet threats. This security information is delivered to our customers on a daily basis to ensure they remain fully protected.

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