Security threats Toolkit

Symantec arms against phishers

Dawn Kawamoto CNET News

Published: 17 Aug 2004 16:25 BST

Symantec plans on Tuesday to announce several security upgrades, with a particular focus on protecting personal information from online thieves.

The 2005 upgrades apply to versions of the company's products for consumers and small businesses: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall, Norton AntiSpam and Norton Internet Security.

Norton AntiVirus will bolster worm protection to block home PCs from worm attacks that come through a network. Blended threats, such as the Sasser and MSBlast worms, fall into this category.

Norton Personal Firewall, meanwhile, will now feature intrusion protection technology, while Norton AntiSpam will include an improved email filtering system. The filtering system is designed to detect email scams, or fraudulent URLs in the body of an email.

Additionally, the company's Norton Internet Security will bundle all consumer security and antivirus offerings into one product. The upgrade will include automatic, real-time notices of high-level security threats, as well as a one-click feature to update the system to ward off the attack.

"The common theme with these 2005 product enhancements… is they are designed to address the evolving threats that threaten personal information and the blended threats," said Laura Garcia-Manrique, Symantec's director of product management.