MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 26, 2013) - Today, Symantec (
For mobile device users, maintaining control of their personal information is a major concern. In fact, 57 percent of app users have uninstalled or declined to install an app to protect their personal information 2 . To address this issue, in addition to scanning for security risks, Norton Mobile Security now scans apps for privacy risk-related attributes. For example, Norton Mobile Security will now flag an application and notify a user if a mobile app is found to export information such as a user's contacts, photos or call logs. Because consumers don't have knowledge of how their data may be used, collected or shared, they are not able to maintain control of their personal information. Norton Mobile Security empowers consumers to protect their personal information and make informed decisions about which apps to keep or remove.
"The issue of privacy is a complex and evolving one, for both consumers and developers," said Con Mallon, senior director, product management, Symantec Corp. "Until now, mobile app privacy scanning has been done only at the most superficial level, which doesn't yield truly relevant and actionable information to consumers. With this latest release, we are using a unique combination of static and dynamic analysis to deliver an unprecedented view into app privacy and information leakage. With this information, consumers can actually decide for themselves whether to keep each app."
Norton Mobile Insight Users of Norton Mobile Security benefit from Norton Mobile Insight, a proprietary intelligence tool that provides dynamic analysis for every app in more than 200 app stores to determine potential security risks, privacy risks and potentially intrusive behavior. Norton Mobile Insight has analyzed more than four million apps to date and determined that more than 30 percent of them leak data such as personal contacts or call logs. Currently, Norton Mobile Insight processes 10,000 new apps every 24 hours and to date has identified 300,000 apps as malicious and 1.5 million apps as being associated with greyware -- such as aggressive ad networks -- or potential privacy risks.
Pricing and Availability Norton Mobile Security has an MSRP of $29.99 and is available for purchase via various retailers, the Norton online store or Google Play. In addition, Norton 360 Multi-Device and Norton One will be updated with the features in the latest release of Norton Mobile Security. Norton customers with a valid product subscription are eligible to receive the latest product updates via the subscription service model. For more information, visit the Norton Update center at http://updatecenter.norton.com . Consumers can visit norton.com/nmsprivacy to learn more about Norton Mobile Security.
About Symantec Symantec protects the world's information, and is a global leader in security, backup and availability solutions. Our innovative products and services protect people and information in any environment -- from the smallest mobile device, to the enterprise data center, to cloud-based systems. Our world-renowned expertise in protecting data, identities and interactions gives our customers confidence in a connected world. More information is available at www.symantec.com or by connecting with Symantec at: go.symantec.com/socialmedia.
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FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality, or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.
1 Certain features available only for Android devices. Operating system requirements are Android 2.2 or later, and iOS 5.0 or later. 2 " Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices " by Jan Lauren Boyles, Aaron Smith, Mary Madden, Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, Sept. 5, 2012.
