Symantec Security Products Shine in In-Depth Protection Reviews

Symantec’s Security Technology and Response organization provides core technology for the company’s industry-leading security solutions

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that Norton AntiVirus 2009 and Norton Internet Security 2009 received top ratings in reviews from two of the industry’s preeminent, independent testing bodies, AV-Comparatives and AV-Test.org.

In the Anti-Virus Comparatives Test No. 19, Symantec was the only vendor to be awarded the top “green” rating in the three tested categories, representing the best combination of detection, false positives and performance. In the review by AV-Test.org, Symantec received a top grade in four of the measured categories, beating every major desktop and server security vendor in the test in the number of top grades.

“In these tests, Symantec’s products demonstrated their ability to protect against millions of threats while maintaining among the lowest false positive rates and the highest performance across all tested products,” said Stephen Trilling, vice president, Security Technology and Response, Symantec. “Symantec’s innovative approach to security technology has allowed us to continually develop and deliver lighter and faster solutions, while maintaining our top-rated protection.”

The Technology behind the Products

The core anti-malware technology and content evaluated in these reviews is delivered by Symantec’s Security Technology and Response (STAR) organization, a worldwide team of security engineers, threat analysts and researchers dedicated to developing the world’s best protection against both existing and emerging threats.

STAR’s technology is leveraged across all of Symantec’s corporate and consumer security product lines. This year, STAR, working with Symantec’s Consumer Business Unit, initiated a massive re-architecture of Symantec’s core security technologies, incorporating a number of industry-first innovations into its flagship Consumer security products. These enhancements have contributed to a drastic improvement in detection and performance as evidenced by the AV-Test.org and AV-Comparatives reviews. These innovative technologies, introduced in Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus 2009, include:

* Norton Insight: This combination of cloud and client-based technologies ensures that Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security never scan common application files known to be safe, resulting in dramatically improved performance. The technology was recently recognized by PC Magazine, receiving the publication’s “Technical Excellence” award.
* Pulse updates: STAR now publishes new virus signatures as often as every five minutes, ensuring that customers always have the most up-to-date protection. AV-Test.org noted that Symantec bested all of the competition with respect to the frequency of its signature updates. Symantec delivered a total of 6,202 updates during the testing period, nearly 10 times more than its next closest competitor.
* New proactive protection: STAR developed new behavioral and heuristics technology capable of detecting a large number of completely new threats, without traditional fingerprints.
* Enhanced Web protection: To address the issue of drive-by downloads, STAR improved the Browser Protection technology and developed new intrusion prevention capabilities for the Norton 2009 products to block Web-based attacks without traditional signatures. In the last 90 days alone, these new technologies in the Norton 2009 products and the earlier versions of the technologies in the Norton 2008 products, have blocked more than 5.2 million Web-based attacks for Symantec’s customers.
* New lean and efficient engines: STAR optimized its core security scanning engines, helping to make Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton Antivirus 2009 the fastest security products in the industry. On the AV-Comparatives Scanning Speed test, Symantec scored more than 25 percent better that its closest competitor.
* Reduced on-disk footprint: The latest products have reduced the size of the virus definitions stored on-disk by nearly 80 percent.

About the Reviews

Anti-Virus Comparative No. 19 is the latest comprehensive security product evaluation conducted by the independent testing organization AV-Comparatives. The reviewers evaluated security products from 15 major vendors in three areas: Overall Malware Detection, False Positive Testing and Scanning Speed. Every product was given a “green,” “yellow” or “red” rating in each category, with green being the best. For further information on the review, visit www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse/report19.pdf.

The independent testing organization AV-Test.org, conducted a major comparative test of 34 security suites. AV-Test.org rated competitors in six categories: Overall Malware Detection, Adware/Spyware Detection, False Positives, Scan Speed, Proactive Detection, and Response Times to new threats. For further information on the review, please visit www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02.

About Security Technology and Response

Symantec’s Security Technology and Response (STAR) organization, which includes Security Response, is a worldwide team of security engineers, threat analysts, and researchers that provides the underlying functionality, content, and support for all Symantec corporate and consumer security products. With global response centers located throughout the world, STAR monitors malicious code reports from more than 120 million systems across the Internet, receives data from 40,000 network sensors in more than 180 countries, and tracks more than 25,000 vulnerabilities affecting more than 55,000 technologies from more than 8,000 vendors. The team uses this vast intelligence to develop and deliver the world’s most comprehensive security protection.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

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