Symantec to reinforce data protection

Symantec plans on Tuesday to announce several security upgrades, with a particular focus on protecting personal information from online thieves.

The 2005 upgrades apply to versions of the company's products for consumers and small businesses: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Personal Firewall, Norton AntiSpam and Norton Internet Security.

Norton AntiVirus will bolster worm protection to block home PCs from worm attacks that come through a network, like the MSBlast worm, as well as blended threats, like the Nimda worm. A blended threat is one that relies on multiple methods to propagate.

Norton Personal Firewall, meanwhile, will now feature intrusion protection technology, while Norton AntiSpam will include an improved e-mail filtering system. The filtering system is designed to detect e-mail scams, or fraudulent URLs in the body of an e-mail.

Additionally, the company's Norton Internet Security will bundle all consumer security and antivirus offerings into one product. The upgrade will include automatic, real-time notices of high-level security threats, as well as a one-click feature to update the system to ward off the attack.

"The common theme with these 2005 product enhancements?.is they are designed to address the evolving threats that threaten personal information and the blended threats," said Laura Garcia-Manrique, Symantec's director of product management.