It wasn’t too long ago that all the work in business was done with a typewriter. Then the mainframe came along. And even more recently, the PC took over the brunt of the work. Now it seems that even the PC is being phased out as the workhorse of the business world. With workforces, and truly business itself, becoming more mobile and worldwide, the technology has had to adapt to keep everyone competitive.

Rather than tying every employee to a desktop PC, workers are hitting the road with notebook computers, PDAs, and smartphones. Using these mobile devices to access the company’s network from anywhere in the world gives workers unprecedented flexibility and mobility, but it also causes some rather serious headaches for IT departments.

Most individuals don’t have the technical know-how to keep their home networks as secure as the company’s. If a company laptop gets infected on a nonsecure network, the infection can spread to the rest of the system despite the best of plans. Tom Powledge and Brian Foster, both senior directors of product management with Symantec (www.symantec.com), spoke with us recently about what Symantec has been doing in order to make both corporate and private networks more secure.

Symantec’s Consumer Line

According to Tom Powledge, the consumer environment is a complex one. About one-third of households with PCs have more than one, and 20% have some type of network connecting the various computers. Powledge said, “Parents or adults are having to act like IT professionals, and [Symantec has] to keep in mind that the average consumer is really not that technical.” To that end, Symantec is trying to make it easy to create a secure network at home. They want to develop a system that will take care of a PC without the user ever having to touch it. Symantec’s consumer business intends to add security for home networks, as well as provide multiplatform support so any operating system will merge seamlessly.

In addition to Norton Internet Security for protection from spyware, worms, and viruses and Norton Confidential that protects passwords and personal information while transacting online, Norton 360 is an all-in-one set-it-and-forget-it comprehensive security solution. Its license is good for up to three computers and helps defend your PC against a wide range of threats with AntiVirus, antispyware, email scanning, and antiphishing, among others. It also includes a PC tune-up in order to keep your machine running at peak efficiency.

Symantec’s Enterprise Products

Brian Foster said that with today’s increasingly mobile workforce has come an increase in mobile technology. A growing number of business machines issued to employees are laptops that can be used not only at work, but at home, hotels, convention centers, or the local coffee shop. Because of the threats that can plague unsecured networks, Symantec has three foci for protection: the device, the information, and the interactions. The device focus is intended to eliminate malicious code and keep it on the network, while the interaction focus is intended to address the security of partnerships and customer or business-to-business interactions. The info focus is to prevent attacks on the data on a device, such as passwords and confidential information.

Products on the enterprise side include products similar to those available to the consumer, with a few added tools for large groups. Database security has the capability to audit data and detect access to files, while the Firewall and VPN (virtual private network) keep the wrong people out of your data but allow employees access to data from almost anywhere in the world. Symantec’s Client Security package will protect your client’s systems with a simplified graphical management security system.

Integrating Consumer & Enterprise Systems

In addition to the ease of use and comprehensiveness of coverage, the various Symantec products are supposed to provide a smooth transition between home and work so that all the safety IT professionals work to provide at work can stay safe at home, too. Of course, as Foster and Powledge said, more people bring their work laptop home than bring their home notebook to work, so there is more compatibility converting enterprise software to home usage than vice versa, but the protection is what’s important.

In an effort to combat new problems that arise without warning, there is also a new product coming onto the market called Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response, or SONAR. SONAR looks at programs running in memory and looks for new classes of malware without previous definitions. It classifies applications based on their performance and sends them to Symantec for analysis.

Mobile Symantec

Until recently, the majority of security threats were directed at Windows PCs, while mobile devices have historically been left alone. Due largely to the current surge in mobile device usage, but also to the lack of mobile device security, hackers are beginning to see mobile devices as a prime target. With products like Symantec Mobile Security 4.0 for Symbian and Mobile AntiVirus for Windows Mobile or Palm OS, Symantec is trying to nip this threat in the bud. The packages are similar in their protective features, just for different operating systems.

Mobile Security for Symbian contains a built-in firewall to limit access to your device and will automatically detect and remove viruses, Trojan horses, and worms using the updated virus definitions from the LiveUpdate server. You can also scan manually with the on-demand scanner tool. The AntiVirus software will protect your device from any code downloaded via email, from the Web, or over a Wi-Fi connection. Scans can occur automatically after synchronizing with a PC or insertion of a media card.

Enter Mobile Security Suite 5.0

The new version of the Mobile Security Suite, version 5.0, has protection for both consumer and enterprise customers. Users can update antivirus software with the latest virus definitions to keep system protection as up-to-date as possible. There is also a firewall to control both inbound and outbound network traffic and an automatic filter to eliminate SMS (Short Message Service, or text) spam. The Enterprise version has support for VPN tunnels and network access control to allow employees access to sensitive data from anywhere. In addition to the more “traditional” protection software, there are also several products intended strictly for the emerging mobile device market.

The Loss Mitigation technologies strongly encrypt data on the device and memory cards, and the file activity log helps network administrators determine who is accessing certain files. If the phone is ever lost or stolen, there is a tool designed to wipe the data on the device, either at the command of an administrator or after a specified number of failed logon attempts. Administrators can also limit certain features of the phone, such as its Bluetooth or Wi-Fi radio or the device synchronization capabilities. Each of these limitations can help control the number of ways hackers can access and infect the device. As with the traditional protection products, there are differences between the enterprise and consumer mobile products. For instance, the typical personal user won’t have much need of a VPN, so the base package doesn’t include it.

In the end, it’s up to us to guarantee that our devices are protected—at home or on the road. Symantec is taking steps to help anyone, whether business managers to personal users, deploy security measures that will keep personal, work, and mobile devices safe from attacks. Visit www.symantec.com to learn more about Symantec products for your business, home, and mobile computers.

by David Miller