According to the new Norton Cybercrime Index, which launched today and tracks and warns people about daily cybercrime risks around the world, online crime has been on the rise in the last week. Last year, Symantec discovered 286 million distinct threats, an average of nine new threats every second, targeting consumer, corporate and government computers. Given the massive growth in threats, consumers need the strongest, most comprehensive protection to defend their identity, their computer, and their most important files when they are searching, shopping, banking or socializing online. To give computer users the protection they need, Norton by Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) today launched Norton 360 version 5.0, the industry’s fastest, most effective all-in-one security suite.  In new independent lab tests, Norton 360 ranked first in both protection and performance.

“Consumers need more protection than ever as cybercriminals target every aspect of our increasingly digital lives,” said Janice Chaffin, group president, Consumer Business Unit, Symantec. “We’ve designed the latest version of Norton 360 to give consumers an easy-to-use, all-in-one suite that provides the utmost protection and won’t slow down their PC.”

First in Protection
In recent third-party testing, Norton 360 version 5.0 achieved a 100 percent protection score for online threat detection from Dennis Technology Labs[1][1], whose methodology has received a 100 percent compliance rating from the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO).
This marks the second year in a row that Norton 360 has beaten the competition in scenarios designed to simulate how typical users get infected while performing real-world online activities on their computers. The latest version of Norton 360 features the same advanced new core security technologies as the award-winning Norton 2011 products, including:

•    Insight, Norton’s exclusive reputation-based security technology, leverages the anonymous software adoption patterns of over 175 million contributing Symantec users to automatically identify and block new malicious software.

•    SONAR 3 behavioral protection monitors running applications for suspicious behavior to quickly identify new attacks, crimeware and other threats designed to evade traditional detection. Upon detection, SONAR 3 automatically handles any decision making on behalf of the computer user.

•    Norton Power Eraser and Norton Bootable Recovery Tool are tools that provide aggressive detection and repair technology, allowing consumers to clean up previously infected computers.  Learn more about these tools and download them here.

First in Performance
In addition to outperforming the competition on protection, Norton 360 version 5.0 also ranked number one in performance testing by PassMark Software[2][2]. Out of a field of five security software suites, Norton 360 achieved the highest overall score to secure the top ranking for the fourth consecutive year. Norton 360 performed 37 percent better than the competitive average of PassMark scores, scanned 45 percent faster than the competitive average, and had the fastest product installation time at just 49 seconds.

New Norton Control Center, Enhanced PC Tuneup and Backup

With its latest version, Norton 360 does more to improve on its already easy-to-use interface.  The Norton Control Center is a new user interface that gives consumers a snapshot of security controls, settings and information about the PC’s protection and performance status. The Norton Control Center provides quick access to the Norton Cybercrime Index, Norton Online Family and website ratings service Norton Safe Web. To further protect people while online, Norton Safe Web now features the Norton Secured badge, which helps identify businesses that use VeriSign SSL Certificates or have the VeriSign Trust Seal on their websites. These businesses have been validated as authentic and, where applicable, secure transactions with VeriSign SSL Certificates (VeriSign was recently acquired by Symantec). From the Norton Control Center, consumers can also click through to the Norton Safe Web for Facebook tool to check their Facebook wall and news feeds for bad links and other threats.

Norton 360 includes performance improvements to PC Tuneup and Automated Backup to help computer users keep their PCs running at their best and keep their important content secure. PC Tuneup now features a faster registry cleaner that fine-tunes key system settings, frees up memory so applications start up and run more quickly and removes unnecessary files to improve hard drive performance. With speedier backup and restore performance and reduced system impact, Norton 360 now makes it easier than ever to safely back up photos and videos, downloaded music, financial documents and other important files.  Norton 360 also updates consumers with progress indicators throughout the backup process and encrypts files backed up online for an extra layer of security.

Pricing, Availability and Compatibility

Norton 360 version 5.0 can be installed on up to three PCs and is now available for purchase in India through various retailers and the Norton online store at buy.norton.com. The suggested retail price for the standard edition including 2GB of online storage space is INR 3,085 (3–PC license) and INR 1,435 (single PC license). The price for premium edition including 25GB of online storage space is INR 3,840. All Norton 360 users with a valid product subscription are eligible to download and use the latest product versions and updates released during their subscription period. For more information, visit the Norton Update center at https://updatecenter.norton.com.

The latest version of Norton 360 supports Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit) Home/Professional/Tablet PC/Media Center with Service Pack 2 or later, Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) and Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) both for Starter/Home Basic/Home Premium/Business/Ultimate editions.