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Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

krebsonsecurity.com

11–20 of 93 posts

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#11
post #6

This was already discussed on HN 7 months ago [0]. I'll repeat what I said about it last time: It's a mistake to focus on Norton in this context. The "correct" way of reading of this headline should be something like "reputable company puts an Ethereum wallet and mining software in the hands of millions of users". Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google…

Well, formerly reputable company.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#12
post #9

It wasn’t a big thing when it was disabled by default and now it is because the default flipped?! I think this is a big issue regardless - it’s like selling a bike rack with every new car. It doesn’t seem right and enforces the wrong behavior.

More precisely, it's like selling a crypto miner with every new car. The use case overlap with a piece of security software is close to zero.

Don't give them any ideas, I can see this actually happening.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#15
Honestly, I think more companies will do this as long as the law allows them and as long as they incentivize their customers by sharing the profits. It's sad that the massive computing power of billions of idle PCs/Macs will be used to mine something (e.g., Bitcoin) with no intrinsic value.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More precisely, it's like selling a crypto miner with every new car. The use case overlap with a piece of security software is close to zero.

Don't give them any ideas, I can see this actually happening.

How long before one has to worry about electric car mechanics surreptitiously installing crypto mining hardware on cars?

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#17
post #6

This was already discussed on HN 7 months ago [0]. I'll repeat what I said about it last time: It's a mistake to focus on Norton in this context. The "correct" way of reading of this headline should be something like "reputable company puts an Ethereum wallet and mining software in the hands of millions of users". Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google…

But for a fee. You paid for software that is letting you mine to benefit Norton, because most people's computers are not going to break even on electic cost.

If it were all that altruistic then they shouldn't need to collect 15%, give them the miner they could download for free.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#18
post #8

I wonder if anybody has estimations of the contribution of anti-virus software to global warming. They run on almost all desktop computers, are generally large and bloated applications that consume tons of cpu for their continuous scans, I would not be too surprised if was far from negligible.

Quibble, A/Vs can hook file accesses and executions so most of the time it is not continuously scanning.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#20
The huge disregard for environmental issues, I suspect that Norton customers who allow this feature will see an increase in energy costs that eat into any profit they might receive from the work the mining activity
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