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Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#51

Post by prox »

feupan wrote: post #5

I’m sorry but this is the funniest thing ever. Wasn’t it just a few years ago we were joking that AV software is the virus? How far have we come.

In the .com era, everything was about the sale and pitch of the new .com that would storm the world with its new economy features. It was everywhere and you had to be “in”

Not much has changed with crypto. Everyone and everything has to go “in” on crypto. Next up! Texas Calculator adds Crypto Miner “Calc-a-Coin”. Buy now or miss out!

Its just waiting for the next crash when people decide they want “out”

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#52

Post by qqii »

> Are there charges or fee associated with coin mining? > Norton Crypto is included as part of Norton 360 subscriptions. However, there are coin mining fees as well as transaction costs to transfer Ethereum. > The coin mining fee is currently 15% of the crypto allocated to the miner.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#53

Post by HelloNurse »

_8j50 wrote: post #27
hules wrote: 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.

Ugh.. do you think AVs are useless or something? Why do people think this. Shit AVs are shit, end of story. Reading memory and is not cpu intensive the disk i/o intensity if windows vs linux alone is very drastic if you want to evaluate that as a baseline instead. It's like asking the carbon footprint of freeway guardrails. I mean, norton sucks, sure but at least turn on defender (which is really good btw). The amoun…

Even a protection racket reduces crime. The trick is that it is someone else's crime.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#54

Post by Victerius »

_8j50 wrote: post #27
hules wrote: 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.

Ugh.. do you think AVs are useless or something? Why do people think this. Shit AVs are shit, end of story. Reading memory and is not cpu intensive the disk i/o intensity if windows vs linux alone is very drastic if you want to evaluate that as a baseline instead. It's like asking the carbon footprint of freeway guardrails. I mean, norton sucks, sure but at least turn on defender (which is really good btw). The amoun…

Yes, I think AVs are useless now, although that didn't used to be the case.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#55

Post by jdavis703 »

protoman3000 wrote: post #43

Why is AV software still a thing? I’ve run my systems for 10 years without AV and never had any issue.

Because there’s lot of users who do naïve things with their computers. People visit sketchy sites, fall behind on updates and download sketchy files.

Not everyone has 1) configured their system properly and 2) has the knowledge to avoid dangerous cyber situations.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#57

Post by bitwize »

ohazi wrote: post #25
billpg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be "No thank you Microsoft/Google/etc. Also, what do I need to do to make it sure it never switches on next time there's an update."

The next update removes your ability to turn it off. The only correct response is " Fuck you Microsoft/Google/etc. You're expunged and I'll never trust you again."

The next PC/device you buy contains a security chip that prevents you from expunging Microsoft/Google.

After that it's, your bank doesn't allow you to log on except with an approved device with the security chip.

Then it's, your government imposes misdemeanor charges for not checking in on your COVID quarantine app (which runs only on security-chipped phones). Due to COVID restrictions, your arraignment hearing will be held on Zoom, which in its latest update, only runs on security-chipped hardware.

None of this will seem especially draconian in today's "green bubbles = breakup" society.

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#58

Post by petee »

qeternity wrote: post #29
maltalex wrote: 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…

> Now imagine if tomorrow Microsoft decided to add a crypto wallet and mining tools to Windows, or Google to Chrome. People keep saying this as if crypto isn't already mainstream. Exchanges have hundreds of millions of customers. A significant portion of the world has traded crypto. And 99.99% aren't doing anything else with it but speculate. It's not as if magically bundling a wallet on millions of machines will sud…

Last stats i just saw pegged the world wide number around 100 million. Lets be generous and say 500 million, versus 7.9 billion world pop puts you at a generous 6%, not exactly mainstream.

(pdf) https://assets.ctfassets.net/hfgyig42jimx/5u8QqK4lqjEgL506mO...

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/crypto-u...

Re: Norton 360 Now Comes with a Cryptominer

#60

Post by emerged »

gb2d wrote: post #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

This will probably be rolled out by DevOps who enable it by default for entire companies and then collect the profits for themselves.
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