14 DAY TRIAL // On September 9th, this year, Symantec will be launching its new Internet Security Suite with some innovative, new protection and reporting features. Attacked users will have the option to report real-time attacks and/or attackers to proper authorities, while also being weekly informed of the FBI's top 10 most wanted hackers list.
Users installing the new Symantec Internet Security Suite will be able to opt in a program called Norton Community Watch that will actively collect attack information. This soft will behave differently from any other standard anti-virus, being more engaged in the user's actions, warning them of real-time attacks and displaying detailed statistics about the problem disrupting the user's activity.
For a long time now, anti-viruses have been quietly doing all the dirty work for us, but this change in Symantec's user-interactivity policy puts an emphasis on stopping future attacks and reporting the problems to proper authorities, so they can study and stop them.
Another new feature will include the alerting and reporting technology dubbed "Autopsy" that will quarantine any new downloaded files and display a warning of their origin, if coming from a previous attack or untrusted location.
These new tools from Symantec will enable the community to actively go after hackers, turning the sheep against the wolves (hackers). Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president of Consumer Products at Symantec, says, "It's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys." He also adds, "I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years if we can peel away the dirt and show people the threats they're facing."
But, despite all these measures, nothing seems to definitely pull the rug under the hackers feet more than Symantec's decision to list the FBI's top 10 most wanted hackers list on its website's anti-virus update page. Since Symantec is the biggest protection company in the world, the faces and techniques used by the top black hats are going to become common knowledge pretty soon. Also starting from 2010, cash rewards will be given by Symantec for any information leading to an arrest of one of those criminals.