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LAS VEGAS: In less than two decades, the number of known viruses and malware (malicious software) has exploded from two to about 1.2 million.
While most new computers purchased now come with some form of security software, about one in 10 computer systems is still being infected, said Mr Rowan Trollope, Symantec's senior vice-president for consumer business.
A common reason computers get compromised is because users turn off the security software as they "perceive security products (to) slow down computers", observed Mr Trollope.
With Symantec's new Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2009, Mr Trollope hopes to see the end of consumers' love-hate relationship with security products.
For NIS 2009, focus has been placed "exclusively" on performance - making it "not just the industry's fastest" but also one having "zero impact" on the user, he said.
To drive home the message that its software does not weigh down computer systems, Symantec invited 18 technology bloggers and journalists from around the world to Las Vegas last week to experience weightlessness in a zero-gravity flight.
According to Mr Trollope, the installation of NIS 2009 takes less than a minute on an average computer system. Boot time takes less than 35 seconds. The memory required to run the software is also four times less than the nearest rival.
Speed and efficiency have been enhanced as well. A new feature, Insight, builds on a common inventory of files from a database of 50 million users to determine which files have been scanned. NIS 2009 only needs to re-scan files if they are new, hence reducing scanning time by four times.
About 75 per cent of computer programs used are common, explained Mr Trollope. "If we can share Insight among computers, I wouldn't have to scan a file that you have already scanned," he said.
Updating of viruses and malware is performed once every five minutes with NIS 2009. This offers a constant feed of updates and prevents a surge in computer memory taken up.
Mr Trollope said the biggest concern among computer users is identity theft. Stolen credit card PINs rank as the top concern in the United States, while in Asia, concerns are over theft of game identity. Last week, there were reports of players of the popular online game MapleStory filing police reports here after their accounts were hacked.
In NIS 2008, Norton Identity Safe was introduced to help users protect online identities by providing a secure storage for username, passwords and other personal infomation such as addresses and credit card numbers used in online transactions. Improvements have been made in NIS 2009, such as advanced phishing protection that keeps personal identification out of the hands of fraudulent websites.
NIS 2009 will be available here by the end of the month and will retail at S$79 to S$109, depending on user licences. - TODAY/fa
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