Working with the best to build your security systems: Norton

With so many threats operating online, Penta uses a unique configuration of security systems to provide the best security systems possible – including industry-leading products from Norton Symantec.  

But while there are plenty of other products available, it is Norton’s pedigree which make it stand out, so here we look at why Penta uses Norton and how the firm built its reputation.

Threats

Norton’s roots actually date back well before the dawn of the internet and the firm can trace its history back to the early 1980s when PCs started to appear commonly. Although it was well before the age of high-speed connectivity which businesses and consumers have come to expect today, computer users still faced challenges from hidden threats.

In the early days of computing, viruses were spread on floppy disks. But once computers were connected to each other at the dawn of the internet in the 1980s, infections were spread more quickly, hence the creation of Symantec, Norton’s parent company.

Revenue

Although many people no consider Apple Macs to be safer than PCs, Symantec’s first product was developed for Apple’s machines and was a huge success, generating $100,000 worth of revenue in its first month of sale.

Symantec bought Norton – then a software company specialising in efficiency utilities – in 1990 and a year later its first PC anti-virus program was launched. The rest, as they say, is history, thanks in no small part to the Melissa email virus – the fastest-growing email virus of the late 1990s. According to Norton, ‘thousands’ turned to the company for help, and the company soon realised the importance of staying one step ahead of internet crooks.

Security software

Today, the firm provides cutting-edge security software to protect 43 million computers worldwide. And their software forms a part of Penta’s highly-acclaimed security systems, one link in the security chain which makes Penta’s infrastructure almost-impossible to break down. Pierre Dugast, technical support specialist at Penta, explains the need to be doubly safe:

“Penta’s servers are protected by Norton’s industry-leading anti-malware software, providing a double tier of security. 

“As well as identifying and filtering out any threats from incoming mail, the server does not permit any executable files from being used, preventing users from launching any harmful files.”

Expertise

Norton’s expertise is staggering. It claims to hold data on more than 40 million attacks in more than 150 countries, meaning the company is well-equipped to deal with the fall-out from becoming a cybercrime victim, as Kevin Haley, Director Product Management of Symantec’s STAR team, explains: “When Norton security stops a piece of malware, your computer will send us information about what just happened, what the file was, when you found it, and where it came from. This helps us understand both the distribution and the prevalence of emerging security threats worldwide.”

In fact, Norton is so confident criminals will not intrude any users’ computers that, if they do, it will refund the cost of the anti-virus software – once its team of specialists have exhausted all options to remove the offending virus.

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