Symantec to offer online protection

The technology still may be in the lab, but Symantec says its plans include the delivery of online protection services that prevent phishing and identity theft while also warning customers about spyware-infested Web sites.

The security firm hopes to have an anti-phishing service ready by this fall that would monitor users' PCs to detect any attack to lure them onto a fake Web site, says Tom Powledge, director of product management at Symantec. The service, which Symantec has code-named Genesis, will greatly depend on how successful Symantec is in developing client software, delivered as a service, which would stop and block phishing attacks based on looking at tricks in a Web site's URL and page contents.

"We would use a form of heuristics to determine a fraudulent Web site," Powledge says.

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The technology still may be in the lab, but Symantec says its plans include the delivery of online protection services that prevent phishing and identity theft while also warning customers about spyware-infested Web sites.

The security firm hopes to have an anti-phishing service ready by this fall that would monitor users' PCs to detect any attack to lure them onto a fake Web site, says Tom Powledge, director of product management at Symantec. The service, which Symantec has code-named Genesis, will greatly depend on how successful Symantec is in developing client software, delivered as a service, which would stop and block phishing attacks based on looking at tricks in a Web site's URL and page contents.

"We would use a form of heuristics to determine a fraudulent Web site," Powledge says.

The anti-phishing service would entail a real-time determination to see whether a visited page is trying to imitate a real Web site. If the page is determined to be a fake, Symantec would immediately provide an on-screen warning blocking the site and giving the user the opportunity to get further information through online chat, e-mail or phone.

Symantec's second related security initiative, dubbed Security 2.0, would entail Symantec issuing real-time warnings to users that visit Web sites with undesirable content, including spyware or adware.

"Our vision of the future is that you'll see either 'safe site' or 'unsafe site,'" Powledge says. Symantec will make these determinations based on constantly scouring the Web with crawlers to look at site contents and activities, while also checking digital certificates for authenticity.

Symantec also is mulling establishing "community credibility ratings" for Web sites. Powledge says the goal is to guarantee a trusted search experience to subscribers of the company's future services.

Accomplishing these ambitious projects and turning them into commercial service offerings will require Symantec to work with e-commerce providers, online banks and possibly other partners. Symantec gained some of the software technology for the online security services through its acquisition last year of WholeSecurity.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.