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‎Norton AntiVirus

Norton AntiVirus 2009
Developed by	Symantec Corporation
Latest release	2009 or 16.2.0.7 (Windows Edition), 11.0.1000.1375 (Corporate), 11.0 (Mac Edition)
OS	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X
Type	Antivirus
License	Proprietary
Website	www.symantec.com/norton

Norton AntiVirus (NAV), a product of Symantec Corporation, is an antivirus program available for Windows XP and Vista. It is designed to protect consumers from malware and software exploits.

Norton AntiVirus is sold as a standalone product or included as part of Norton Internet Security and Norton SystemWorks. The latter products add more comprehensive PC protection, including monitoring for spyware, adware, and other potential security risks. A standalone corporate version exists called Symantec Endpoint Protection (formerly known as Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition), and is used in centrally managed corporate environments.

History

Norton Antivirus was initially released in 1990. After Symantec acquired Central Point Software in 1994, NAV was integrated with its main competitor of the era, Central Point Anti-Virus (CPAV). CPAV was also licensed to Microsoft as the Microsoft Anti-Virus utility.

Version History

Version 2006 (13.0)

Norton AntiVirus 2006

New features included spyware and adware detection in full system scans. The Norton Protection Center, a central interface, aggregated security data displayed it in a single screen. Home page hijacking protection was introduced.

Version 2007 (14.0)

After customer complaints, Symantec revised its product with the goal of improving slow speeds and reducing high system resource utilization.^[1]

Symantec has extended its Veritas VxMS enterprise rootkit detection technology to the consumer level, allowing Norton Internet Security 2007 to compare files within the directory to files on the volume level. This quickly ferrets out suspicious or known malware and rootkits. CNET

Version 2008 (15.0)

Norton AntiVirus 2008 was released on August 28, 2007.

New features include SONAR (Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response) technology, designed to detect potentially malicious code before traditional virus definitions are available. SONAR monitors program behavior rather than looking for specific viral signatures. Browser Defender is intended to protect Internet Explorer from drive by downloads and unpatched exploits. Home Network Security Status displays status of Norton AntiVirus on all PCs in a home network. Capability for multiple daily updates was added.

Version 2009 (16.0)

The 2009 version was released on September 8, 2008. It uses a new software architecture which boosts the software speed. It has some new features including Silent Mode, Smart Idle Time Scheduler, Program Trust, a CPU/Memory usage monitor, and Norton Insight which uses data from a global network to predetermine if a file is safe.

Symantec claims that Norton 2009 is the fastest amongst its predecessors and in the world because of its new architecture that reduces the boot time impact, the scan time, the memory usage as well as the system footprint and the install time. Redundancies have been removed, slimming the installation size from 300 megabytes in 2006 to less than 100 megabytes.^{[citation needed]}

Norton's latest release offers an innovations in NIS2009 called Norton Insight, "a technology allowing you to cut scanning times by mapping known “good” files, either from an online database or from a user input." ^[2]

Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition

Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition was released November 25, 2008. It is based on the same architecture as Norton AntiVirus 2009, however, it has a lower impact on boot times. It offers a "Gamer Mode" that protects a computer from malware while allowing for maximum performance for games by reducing its network utilization, unlike Norton AntiVirus 2009 and suspends updates, alerts, and other background activities and is automatically enabled when system is in full screen mode. "Gamer Mode" can also be manually enabled. Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition

Norton Insight

Yet another technique introduced in the 2009 product line is Norton Insight. It collects the SHA256 value of all running processes, along with their dependencies. Norton also assigns uses a 1 through 5 star scale as a heuristic analysis of each process. The SHA256 values are then forwarded to remote servers, which leverage information about running processes from over 65 million Norton community users. The server then reports back to the client's computer with information about safe, or trusted processes and their dependencies. Safe processes are present on the majority of participating Norton Community user computers, naively trusted by Norton, or digitally signed, depending on the level of trust specified by the user. Standard Trust only trusts files that have been validated by Symantec’s secure backend systems. High Trust will also trust files that are signed, and the signature is validated against the machine’s local certificate store. This industry-first whitelisting technology allows Norton to perform scans faster and focus more on untrusted processes.

The heuristic detection sensitivity threshold can also be greatly increased with Norton Insight technology without raising the number of false positives because trusted applications are excluded from heuristic scanning, which further saves time and processing power.

The technology also makes commonly used “allow/deny” pop-ups unnecessary because Norton can easily determine if a program is trusted.

Norton Insight also employees a number of tamper protection features to ensure its integrity. Its kernel mode device driver technology instantaneously revokes file trust attributes the moment the file is modified. Upon startup, Norton analyzes the NTFS file system, and if it detects any changes it could not account for, all the trust values of the files on the system are instantly revoked. All information is stored in a very high performance and secure product-specific database.

In the case of a mistake, a revocation mechanism was implemented, where clients receive a list of revoked SHA256 values via LiveUpdate. If the client has a file matching that SHA256 and is currently trusting that file, all trust is revoked, and the file is once again scanned. Norton Protection Blog

Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac

Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac combines Norton AntiVirus 2008 for Windows with Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac. It's intended for users of Intel-based Macs who have both Mac OS X and Windows running on their computers. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later; it's a Universal binary. Windows system requirements call for Windows XP SP2 or Vista. [2]

Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac leverages Symantec's Global Intelligence Network, a worldwide network comprised of information security and operations specialists as well as Symantec's global community of thousands of Internet activity sensors. The Global Intelligence Network provides Symantec Security Response with an view of the entire security landscape. This holistic view enables Symantec to see threats first to quickly provide protection to consumers. [3]

Features

Norton AntiVirus provides real-time protection from viruses, spyware, worms, keyloggers, rootkits and many other forms of malware. Futhermore, a unique feature Norton AntiVirus has is the ability to block many types of Internet based attacks with its Intrusion Prevention System, which acts as a firewall. Intrusion Prevention scans and blocks any network traffic that attempts to hijack vulnerable programs.

Virus definitions

Symantec's Norton LiveUpdate provides virus definition updates, which enable Norton AntiVirus to malware and security risks, a total of 2,661,220^[3] viruses as of November 26, 2008. In order to receive updates, a valid subscription is required. When a user's subscription expires, the user loses functionality of the program. No updates or patches can be downloaded unless renewed.

The corporate edition has a client/server strategy to update virus definitions. Each workstation has LiveUpdate installed, but it is linked to a central server instead of connecting directly to Symantec. The server will download all necessary updates directly from Symantec's LiveUpdate service, then distribute those updates to the client/managed workstations. This reduces redundant updates over the organizational network.

Mac edition

The current edition for Mac is Norton AntiVirus 11.0 for Macintosh. It provides similar functionalities as its Windows counterpart.

Symantec Antivirus for Macintosh (SAM) was a discontinued edition of Norton AntiVirus for Mac OS. It was merged with the Norton line of products and is now part of the Norton Systemworks and Norton Internet Security suites. Although originally dealing with viruses on the Mac OS, its use was largely limited in later years due to the widespread use of the freeware antivirus program Disinfectant.

Criticisms

Customer service

Symantec offers free phone, e-mail, and online chat support, which includes remote-control if the user allows it. Additionally, the Norton user forum is currently in public beta, where users can solicit responses and help from Symantec employees and other users. Home User Forum Symantec Corporate Forum

However, retail customers report slow and indifferent service on bugs. Examples include a faulty error message that valid subscriptions have expired. ^[4] Users received an error that stated "Your virus protection cannot be updated." This error occurred after an update to the software and refused to allow daily updates via "Intelligent Updater."^{[citation needed]} Though the bug was reported in 2004, it was not corrected for the 2005 or 2006 versions. ^[5] Another example occurred in May 2007, when Norton Antivirus would remove the program file for the Pegasus e-mail client. Symantec customer service allegedly addressed the problem by running through a checklist of troubleshooting steps which were not always successful, perhaps indicating a need for a more thorough understanding of the product on the company's behalf.

Faulty Update to Norton AntiVirus 2006 Users

On July 25, 2006, Symantec released a faulty Norton AntiVirus update affecting Norton AntiVirus 2006. Many users of Symantec Norton AntiVirus 2006 (including users of Norton Internet Security 2006 and Norton SystemWorks 2006) experienced difficulties due to a faulty update sent via LiveUpdate. Users reported an onscreen message stating "Norton AntiVirus 2006 does not support the repair feature" and asking that users uninstall and reinstall the software package.

Symantec said the faulty update was downloaded to customers between 1PM and 7PM on that day. The security vendor recommended affected users either download a workaround tool or follow steps posted on their site. The company released a statement promising to "deliver a repair patch to affected users by the end of day, Monday, July 31, 2006."^[5]

Response to malware

In response to issues related to response time to viruses, Symantec introduced a new technology called "pulse updates" to Norton AntiVirus 2009. These updates are designed to deliver rapid updates every 5 to 15 minutes to ensure customers are kept up-to-date on threats without slowing down their computer with large updates. According to AV-test, Norton Internet Security 2009 beta received 6,202 incremental micro-updates over a four-week period. The next leading competitor, Kaspersky, received 696 updates. Half of the 34 products tested had fewer than 100, including those from McAfee (21) and Trend Micro (30). AV-test

Additionally, Norton AntiVirus 2009 has introduced a new technology, dubbed "Bloodhound". It is a static technique that supplements real-time protection. It analyzes files in on-demand scanning for unknown, zero-day, or mutated malware. According to AV-Comparatives, an unreleased beta of Bloodhound would detect ~41% of malware with one month old signatures, compared to 18% the 2008 version detected. [4]

Another technology is SONAR. SONAR stands for Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response. It monitors programs in real-time for any signs of suspicious activity using over 300 different parameters, such as whether it creates a Add/Remove Programs entry. It is standard on all 2008 and later products. It is available as an free add-on for 2007 products. It is an example of HIPS, or Host Based Intrusion Prevention System. SONAR HIPS

Uninstallation

Norton AntiVirus has been criticized for refusing to uninstall cleanly. In response, Symantec has provided software to remove its registry keys and values and perform a cleaner uninstall.^[6]

2008 and previous versions fail to remove the separate LiveUpdate component. PCWorld

However, 2009 does not install a separate LiveUpdate component. A Norton Removal Tool is still provided however. Norton Removal Tool

Incompatibility with other software

Norton AntiVirus 2007 advises during installation that it is incompatible with certain programs ZoneAlarm and Spy Sweeper.^[7] During installation, the purchaser receives warnings that these programs are incompatible, and should be uninstalled from the system before continuing, since Norton AntiVirus includes a partial firewall.

The incompatibility warnings have caused annoyance for Norton customers who purchased Norton AntiVirus 2007 with no warning or notice of the incompatibility ^{[7] [8]}.

Independent assessments

• Norton Internet Security won PC Magazine editor's choice awards for 2007, 2008 and 2009.^[9][10][11]

• PC World rated Norton Internet Security 2008 as the top performer among tested 2008 security suites.^[12]

• PC World has also rated Norton Internet Security 2006 as a "Best Buy". [5]

• PC PRO has recommended Norton Internet Security 2009: PCPRO

• CNET rated Norton Internet Security 2009 as 4/5. CNET

• PC World IDG gave Norton Internet Security 2009 a 4.5/5 rating." PC World IDG

• Secunia tested 12 popular AntiVirus suites, including Kaspersky, BitDefender, Trend Micro, McAfee, OneCare, AVG, F-Secure, Panda, ZoneAlarm, CA, and Norman against 144 malicious files and 156 malicious web pages, which carry exploits that allows a hacker to drop a malicious payload. Norton Internet Security 2009 leaded by detected 30.95% of all the exploits, including the files and malicious web pages.

• According to AV-test.org, Norton 2008 excels in rootkit detection and removal; only product of the 34 tested to receive "++" in both rootkit detection and removal. AV-test

• According to AV-test.org, Norton Internet Security 2009 beta detected 98.7% of malware.

• According to AV-comparatives.org, Norton AntiVirus had "few" false positives.

• According to AV-comparatives, an unreleased preview of Norton AntiVirus's improved heuristics would score ~41% in the May 2008 test compared to its current stable release's 18%.

• PassMark Software benchmarked Norton Antivirus 2009 and various other security software competitors' performance impact on key metrics. Highlights from this report include: Fastest install: installs in 52 seconds, least working memory usage: uses less than 7MB, fastest quick scan: scans take 33 seconds.

• According to AV-comparatives, Norton AntiVirus 2009 was the second fastest security suite overall. AV-comparatives Anti-Virus Comparative

• Norton AntiVirus 2008 is Certified by ICSA Labs.

• Norton AntiVirus 2009 received the highest possible rating from Checkvir labs, "Standard".

• Norton AntiVirus 2009 received the highest possible rating from Checkvir labs, "Standard", for detecting malware transmitted by electronic mail.

• Norton has consecutively passed all VB100% tests since 1999.

• Norton AntiVirus successfully detected 44% of malware with 4 week old signatures with "few" false positives. AV-comparatives gave Norton AntiVirus the "Advanced" rating. AV-comparatives

• Cascadia Labs found that Norton 2009 was the only product tested that blocked all drive-by-downloads, fake online antivirus scanners, and fake video codec sites. [6]

• Norton Internet Security 2009 received ProtectStar, Inc. 1st place "ProtectStar Award 2009" ProtectStar big comparative test report

Note: Most test results for NIS apply for NAV and vice versa, except for firewall tests.

References

External links

• Symantec's page on Norton Antivirus 2009
• Symantec Homepage
• AV vendors split over FBI Trojan snoops The Register, November 27, 2001

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