Norton Mobile Security Delivers App Privacy Protection

New Norton™ Mobile Insight intelligence technology performs dynamic mobile app analysis, reveals which leak personal information

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – July 17, 2013 – Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) recently released the latest version of Norton Mobile Security, which delivers powerful, effective protection for Android smartphones and tablets, iPhones and iPads . The latest updates to Norton Mobile Security for Android address privacy, a growing area of consumer concern, with new intelligence technology called Norton Mobile Insight. Privacy risk scans powered by Norton Mobile Insight will reveal which mobile applications may put the user’s personal information at risk. The latest updates to Norton Mobile Security also extend enhanced anti-theft capabilities to iPhone and iPad with a “scream” alarm to help users quickly find their missing mobile device.

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 . 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 Jason Mok, Symantec’s Consumer Sales Manager. “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. In this latest product release, Symantec offers a unique combination of static and dynamic analysis to deliver an unprecedented view into application privacy and information leakage. With this information, consumers can actually decide for themselves whether to keep each application.”

Jason Mok, Consumer Sales Manager, Norton by Symantec.

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 RM49.99 and is available for purchase via various retailers, the Norton online store or Google Play.  In addition, Norton 360 Multi-Device 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.