Tag Archive for: norton
Norton Anti-Virus is Becoming a Crypto Mining Botnet
In the before-times – the heady days of 2017 when the prices of both Bitcoin and Ethereum skyrocketed and seemed immune to gravity – several well-known companies boosted their value by claiming to build new products on the blockchain or to create a solid trustworthy crypto-coin. The trend has continued through the pandemic.
We often note a whiff of desperation in old-economy businesses trying to re-invent themselves as blockchain or crypto companies. For example, according to Krebs On Security, RadioShack relaunched in 2020 as an online brand and “now says it plans to chart a future as a cryptocurrency exchange” by helping old-school customers feel comfortable with crypto speculation. We know that a few years ago photo giant Kodak, whose primary product was replaced by ubiquitous digital cameras on smartphones, announced moves into cryptocurrency called KodakCoin and Kodak KashMiner which quickly and temporarily boosted Kodak’s stock price 60%. The New York Times stated at the time, “Almost immediately, critics pounced on the company’s plans, characterizing them as a desperate money grab.” Kodak soon abandoned the coin and digital mining effort and Kodak now claims to be a drug company. Who is next, Blockbuster as NFT-factory?
No, the newest surprising news is Norton LifeLock as a crypto miner. Not that Norton LifeLock is an old-economy company, but it is a relatively stogy security firm offering a two-decade-old product that seems less relevant now than it used to be. In the internet age, software firms from the 1990s may count as “old-economy.”
Norton LifeLock has started offering the “Norton Crypto” tool as part of its famous yellow-branded Norton 360 software for home and business computers. Norton Crypto allows paying customers to mine cryptocurrencies while their computers are otherwise inactive. When the tool is turned on, Norton brings together all of its customers’ mining capacity into a pool of computing power that mines Ethereum then breaks the value of the mined currency into pieces and deposits a small percentage into a Norton…
Norton Put a Cryptominer in Its Antivirus Software
This week, we reported that Signal has gone forward with its controversial cryptocurrency integration. All of the encrypted messaging app’s users now have access to MobileCoin, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that US exchanges still don’t offer. The intent is to give monetary transactions the same protection from surveillance that Signal brought to messaging. But skeptics worry that introducing a financial element will bring unwanted complexity and regulatory scrutiny to Signal, an app that millions of people have come to rely on.
In hacking news, criminal campaign has struck thousands of victims in over a hundred countries, which in itself isn’t necessarily all that unusual. Microsoft fixed the vulnerability the attackers are exploiting, though, nearly a decade ago. The problem: The patch is optional, and most users wouldn’t know where to get it even if they wanted to. If anything, it’s surprising that it took this long for someone to take advantage.
It’s a new year, which means it’s a great time for a couple of refreshers on how to stay safe online. We looked at how to send messages that automatically vanish on various chat apps. And we walked you through a few ways to delete yourself from the internet altogether, should the occasion call for it.
As part of this year’s virtual WIRED HQ at CES, we had a wide-ranging conversation with former congressman Will Hurd about the future of cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and much more.
And that’s not all! Each week we round up all the security news WIRED didn’t cover in depth. Click on the headlines to read the full stories.
Norton, what are you doing! Several months ago the antivirus giant snuck a cryptominer into its consumer software, as noted by author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow earlier this week. The pitch is that you can opt in to letting Norton mine cryptocurrency on your computer while you’re not using it; the software will even set up a secure wallet for you, all for a mere 15 percent cut of the proceeds. To be clear, you should absolutely not do this. Not only is cryptomining a drain on the environment, it introduces complexity and potential security issues to users who likely don’t know what they’re…