Norton Security Premium 2017 product reviews

Norton Anti-Virus - and that includes the vastly expanded fleet of partner apps and features that have come about due to the ever-evolving threatscape - has long be tarred by a tainted brush. The cloud of "bloatware" has hung over it for years against all the evidence to the contrary (including our in-depth reviews of the software since it's major overhaul about 8 years ago) so to find a package that has been "updated" but appears to be pretty much the same from a general user's perspective makes this a tough review to write without diving deep into the realms of geek-'leet-speak. But... I'll give it a try.

The latest offering from Symantec is actually quite an important upgrade, however you would be forgiven feeling a little flim-flammed if you bought a subscription, installed it, and couldn't see any difference... but you can rest assured your PC knows there's some new tech under the hood, and that's where all the serious upgrades have happened. With the recent increase in ransomware, rootkits, Internet-of-Things invasions, WiFi vulnerabilities and the like, having an overhaul in the vital tech is something the Symantec crew have been focussed on for a while - this year's edition bears the fruits of all those labours.

Some of the key changes include their enhanced protection against the aptly-called "zero-day vulnerabilities" - those loopholes in the system that hackers find and hammer into without any delay, and it is often days before the vendors see the damage happening in the datasphere, figure it out for themselves and create secure patches to stem the flow of corruption. From Norton's press release: Norton Security Premium's Proactive Exploit Prevention technology helps protect the holes in common software applications by recognising a range of malicious behaviours that are trademarks of zero-day attacks. One of the benefits of this approach is that it provides protection against a wide variety of exploit attacks during the critical window when vulnerable software is deployed until the point that a software patch is installed - a process that can take weeks or even months." Scary, right? The thought that your latest addictive game has a secret trap-door in it that not even the creators were aware of, and someone has climbed into your system to pilfer your passwords, email, bank logins, etc.

Another of the "big guns" brought to bear in this endless war is Norton's "Emulation Technology" - effectively, a virtual machine that Norton sets up in memory, then unpacks and runs any suspect files inside it. This way it can study the software's behaviour in a "sterile" environment, allowing malware to run its course while locked away inside the sealed box, unable to affect your "real" machine in any way. From this, the Norton's software can gleam vital behavioural data to be shared with the greater Norton Community, giving everyone a more secure, preventative protection. Norton claims that around 83% of current threats employ some form of anti-virus avoidance technology, effectively masking the dangerous bits, so this kind of tech is absolutely imperative in today's cyberscape.

"Machine Learning" has become a bit of a catch-phrase, bandied about as the flavour-of-the-month, but in some rare cases the term is well-warranted. This is one of them. Traditional anti-malware has, for decades, relied on "signatures" - snippets of the malware's digital DNA - and uses them in a manner similar to our bodies' immune system, by comparing every new file against the library of "flash cards" and, should a match be detected, take the appropriate defensive action. Malware authors have long since bypassed this basic level of protection by utilising polymorphic code - programming that changes it's structure without compromising it's nefarious missions. Behavioural profiles are better, because they rely on looking at the goals and actions, rather than the engineering of the malware... but even that is become an outmoded way of looking at malware, who's more recent invocations embody an entirely different mindset, and often come pre-packed with multiple potential targets which get activated either at random, or based on the environment they find themselves in when awoken. This new Machine Learning that Symantec have built in has elements of trend analysis and heuristic predictive technology at it's core, giving the software an almost prescient nature. It can anticipate, based on it's globally-sourced and globally-shared library of "past encounters", to predict likely vulnerabilities and vectors of attack, and protect you against them before you get hit.

There's also a upgrade OFF your systems too - the new "My Norton" web portal that changes the game entirely with how you interact with your Norton products and services. Offering better and a wider scope of access to your subscriptions and data from and about your protected devices, you can get the most out of your subscription. Easier than ever before, you can even remotely monitor and adjust the level of protection for your kids too through the Parental Controls module that you certainly would have activated on your wee ones' devices when you installed the main app. In this day and age, kids are an ever-more-valued target of opportunity for malware authors, because kids are more easily mislead and swayed by flashy adverts, promises of hit new games that they can "trial for free" or win prizes "...just by clicking this link and answering a few easy questions..." which provide huge amounts of raw material for social-hacking - where the hackers don't try to break your security, they trick you into doing it for them!

While the new package also carries enhancements designed to improve performance and protection for Mac/iOS based devices as well, that's an aspect I couldn't test so you'll have to take that one on faith sorry.

Overall, though the latest update isn't anything flash to LOOK at, any Norton user should definitely get their licence renewed and get updated immediately, and anyone who is genuinely concerned about their digital health really should look into this latest generation. If the virtual world we live in today doesn't worry or outright scare you, you aren't paying attention. Get protected, start with Norton!