IT News & Technology update

Symantec to acquire PC Tools

Symantec has announced the imminent takeover of PC Tools, a security software vendor. Although the transaction has already been discussed and both parties have agreed that, the actual purchase is expected that by the end of the year. The sum of the Cupertino-based security solution is to pay for the acquisition was not disclosed.

"We are thrilled to welcome PC Tools in the Symantec family and consumer believe that the combination of our two companies will provide additional value and choice for consumers worldwide to better enable and protect their digital life," said Symantec Consumer Products Group President of Janice Chaffin . "By adding PC Tools, we are building on the market leading success of Symantec's consumer offerings and positioning ourselves for further incremental growth in a rapidly growing market." She added.

The main incentive behind the transaction was that Symantec wanted to expand to more markets and since PC Tools has its headquarters in Australia, but with offices in the U.S., UK, Ireland and Ukraine, said he makes easy goal to achieve. The Cupertino-based security solution, some companies benefit from technologies that PC Tools, while the majority of software applications of the acquired company will remain the same. Since the Norton manufacturer says, "PC Tools will continue to offer their products under the brand PC Tools and its customers through its existing partners and channels."

Although a PC Tools official explanation was not yet available at the time of writing, an employee of the company confirmed that PC Tools would work as an unmistakable module within Symantec, a unit under the direction of the current CEO of the company, Simon Clausen. The business is basically explained as an opportunity for the exchange of different technologies and create better products than if they had developed separately.

The question of whether the PC Tools will still be able to distribute free products or not, as Symantec is loyal to the business model is based on the commercialization of proprietary software. The two companies have not disclosed any details in relation to this matter so far.

No Comment | Posted in » pc tools, symantec  

Toshiba laptops will have Norton installed on them

According to an agreement between the laptop manufacturer Toshiba and Symantec, a company that specializes in providing software solutions for security, all laptop models produced by the manufacturer mentioned above and are distributed in North and South America will come with Norton 360 and Norton Internet Security 2008 installed on them. Purchasers will be able to use these security solutions for free for a period of 60 days. This is the introductory subscription provided by Toshiba in three different languages (English, Spanish and French).

Jeff Barney, Director General and Vice-President of digital products in "Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc, comments: "For our customers, Norton means confidence and full guarantee of their laptop computers. Prior to the installation of Norton security solutions for all our laptop computers, we will offer our customers a world-class solution for security, to protect your laptop in terms of PC security, protection of identity, tune to technology and reserve capabilities."

Worldwide, Symantec is one of the most popular providers of security, storage and system management solutions. NIS (Norton Internet Security) is designed to effectively protect consumers while you browse the Internet, which is chucked full of infected pages of malicious software and distribution of objects. Norton 360 protects against all types of threats such as computer viruses, phishing, spyware and spam. Both solutions are designed to protect consumers from all the various security threats can be found online.

Erin Hintz, vice president of consumers worldwide to trade with Symantec, comments: "Symantec is pleased to see Toshiba, one of the premiere brands in mobile computers, adding to our award-winning Norton security software to its laptop computers in North and South Americas. […] Toshiba is an innovator in the notebook computer market for more than 20 years. We look forward to providing our customers, Toshiba All-in-one solution for security, to ensure their laptop computers."

If you wish, you can also give security software for Symantec, Norton 360, NIS 2008 and the latest NAV 2009, will correct the coup. The simple truth of the matter is that there is no need to get the Toshiba laptop to see whether Symantec software solutions are able to offer you a proper online security.

No Comment | Posted in » security, symantec, Symantec Norton, Toshiba  

How to come up with a strong password

As online threats grow in number more and more each day, it's important to stay as safe and secure as possible: networks should be monitored, security solutions put into effect and force, the data encrypted and protected. But the election of a password for your software programs or coded data is not as simple as using your maiden name of his grandmother's objections, for example. It is important to come up with a strong, not easily recognizable password that will give you peace and security you need.

"The password is the creation of a permanent dance between security and convenience, where good passwords that bridge to gap are hard to come up from. On the one hand, strong passwords changed on a regular basis, to reduce the likelihood of success for a wide range of attacks . On the other hand, if you make something too complicated, you run the risk of forgetting that slightly more ironic proof of their security, " said Ben Nahorney from Symantec.

According to him, there are several methods you can work so as to achieve with a strong password that will be able to remember for more than 10 minutes.

Deputy characters with letters
For password to be strong, it should contain letters and numbers. There are some letters that are somewhat similar numbers, so that whenever possible, it is a good idea to replace one with another. For example, just the word "password" becomes "p @ 55w0rd". Also, it is a good idea to capitalize on some of the letters, rendering the previous example, in "P @ 55w0Rd".

Salt password
Cryptography experts are certainly familiar with this idea, which leads to the accidental addition of pseudo-characters of your password. For example you could add your car number, weight or any other number to your password and increase its strength. It is best to avoid adding your birth date because it is "easily identifiable personal information. Take for example, presented above, and let's say that someone who weighs 98 kg, that wants to use salt for the password. In this situation we will end up with something like "P98 @ 55w0Rd" or "P @ 55w098Rd".

Inspiration from the things you like
Just look at a movie or listening to songs and you certainly will come up with something, you can use. Here are some classic examples: "feel lucky, punk" by Clint Randelov film turns into "D0Uf33l | uckyPunk?" or door "is" whole Lotta Love "became the song" WH0 | 3L0 + + aLuv ". Add a little salt, and have a pretty good password. You can find inspiration in something that you circumvented by newspaper, book or film, with something that a friend once told you and you laugh.

First letter sentences
People used to do something similar when looking at someone's registration number. If the registration is something like "IKBTY", which will translate into "I know better than you". When he comes with a password, go around it otherwise things. So, taking a long phrase as "another world, another time, in the face of a miracle" can come up with "AW, C, I +40 W".

Foreign languages
To give your password that little extra power, you could include words from other languages. You can include Italian word "sinistra" (the left is in English), but first made a little substitution of salting and even to come up with something like "51Ni5 + RA

No Comment | Posted in » Password, security, symantec  

Norton Internet Security 2009 to Come with Super High-Speed

Symantec is one of the best software companies to network security and this fact only forces it to bring more and more advanced technologies that will be able to protect one's important data. Therefore, Symantec is preparing to implement the impressive new features in the upcoming Internet Security 2009, but Rowan Trollope, senior vice president of Symantec, quoted by PC Magazine, the primary is actually improving the speed of application. Symantec wants to make its own security super fast application that will be able to scan the computer in no time.

Moreover, Symantec wants to simplify the process of installation of Internet Security 2009 and make the whole setup wizard one click. According to PC Magazine, a Symantec security experts analyze the regular Norton Internet Security 2008 installation and it could take up to eight minutes. This must be improved, Rowan Trollope said. Therefore security company wants to abandon Microsoft installation program and develop its tool that will allow users to deploy software for less than one minute with a single click.

In addition, Symantec wants to quickly scan the process. To do so, the company wants to develop a huge list of list of programs, but also very new technology to bring the definition updates on consumer computers. No more than 300 improvement in efficiency is expected to be included in Norton Internet Security 2009, PC Magazine reports.

"It's obvious that we must be absolutely the best in performance. If I could create what is the largest the fastest security product in the world without compromising security functions, it will be very clear to the consumer why would you buy Norton. Implementation of Focus for 2009, "a Symantec official told the same source. "We do not yet exist. We're still working on it."

No Comment | Posted in » News, security, symantec  

Best Windows Security - 2008 edition

In search of better antiviral 2008, has put forward one step further, courtesy of security solutions testing laboratory AV-Test.org. The entire best available security suite 2008 edition was thrown against more than 1.1 million samples of malicious code at the scene Windows XP SP2. At this point in time, with XP SP3 is around the corner, the results released by AV-Test also valid for the third and final package of Windows XP, but not the same is true for Windows Vista (plus Service Pack 1) platform.

In fact, the tests have been designed to assess a wide range of aspects to build together the puzzle in bulletproof security solutions. In the anti-virus software at the request had to detect malicious designs, adware and spyware, but also rootkits, and even actively identifying opportunities for unknown malicious code. And on top of this analysis are taken into account factors such as productivity, the amount of false positives generated, response time, and cleaning capabilities.

"It is crucial to have good heuristics, common signatures and dynamic detection and prevention in place to be able to handle the new unknown malicious software without any updates. It’s extremely important to have good response time to be able to respond to new malicious program when the active mechanisms do not detect them. It is very important to have good detection rates static, as to be able to cope already known malicious programs, even before it was executed on the same system. Example that compares the characteristics of one makes less sense, we must think about that the user has not acquired AV product found viruses and report them, but he really bought the service keep its system malware-free," Marx added.

The list continues with the rest of the antivirus test with 30 security solutions. On detection rates of malicious software, as well as adware and spyware for Trend Micro 98.72% - 95.14%; Sophos 98.10% - 98.83%; Nod32 (Eset) 97.85% - 96.33 %; Microsoft 97.79% - 91.50%; BitDefender 97.77% - 98.77%; Kaspersky 97.17% - 92.02%; Norton (Symantec) 95.70% - 98.62%; Panda 95.62% - 95.57%; McAfee 95.58% - 98.56% etc.

Sophos quickly to celebrate their victory over rivals Symantec and McAffe. "Sophos continues to innovate and improve the methods used to protect against viruses, Trojans, spyware, adware and other threats. It is especially gratifying to see Sophos praised for having" very good "when it detects an unknown malware," said Guy Edsall, a product Sophos manager. "Sophos has received high scores across the board. Combination of these wonderful opportunities related to the protection of Sophos in the underlying philosophy of governance was a mere driver behind many companies, the transition from Symantec and McAfee for Sophos."

The results for the Anti-virus evaluation test of current anti-malware products, March 2008 edition, are offered via Sunbelt Software here, here, and here. With the original Excel spreadsheet from AV-Test up for grabs here.

No Comment | Posted in » Antivirus, Avira, McAfee, symantec, windows  

Norton Antivirus Now Protects Yahoo Messenger

Automatic scanning for files sent on YM
by: Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor | softpedia.com

Yahoo Messenger 9 is expected to bring a totally new chating experience to all its fans out there and the Sunnyvale company really struggles to reach this goal.

No Comment | Posted in » Antivirus, Internet, Norton update, security, security software, symantec, Yahoo, yahoo messenger