Why is Norton Anti-Virus becoming a crypto-mining botnet? | Womble bond dickinson

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We often notice a surge of desperation in old economy companies trying to reinvent themselves as blockchain or crypto companies. For example, according to Krebs On Security, RadioShack was relaunched in 2020 as an online brand and “now says it plans to chart a future as a cryptocurrency exchange” by helping old school customers to feel comfortable with crypto speculation. We know that a few years ago the photo giant Kodak, whose main product was replaced by ubiquitous digital cameras on smartphones, announced its entry into the cryptocurrency called KodakCoin and Kodak KashMiner, this which quickly and temporarily increased the Kodak share price by 60%. The New York Times said at the time: “Almost immediately criticism of the company’s plans was cast as desperate money-grabbing. Kodak quickly abandoned the coin and digital mining effort and Kodak now claims to be a pharmaceutical company. Who’s Next, Blockbuster as an NFT Factory?

No, the latest surprising news is Norton Security as a crypto miner. Not that Norton Security is an old economy company, but it’s a relatively old security company with a two-decade-old product that seems less relevant today than before. In the internet age, the software companies of the 1990s can be thought of as “the old economy”.

Norton Security has started offering the “Norton Crypto” tool as part of its popular yellow-branded LifeLock security software for home and office computers. Norton Crypto allows paying customers to mine cryptocurrencies while their computers are otherwise inactive. When the tool is activated, Norton gathers all the mining capabilities of its customers into a pool of computational power that extracts Ethereum, then splits the value of the mined currency into chunks and deposits a small percentage into a Norton-owned digital wallet. in the cloud. for each participating customer. Norton skims a 15% service charge before value is allocated to customers. Norton claims to offer this tool as a way to help customers improve security by providing reliable data mining tools and avoiding “unverified code on their machines that could skim revenue or even crash ransomware.”

Despite some public accusations to the contrary, Norton does not automatically activate Norton Crypto when you subscribe to LifeLock security software. You would need to activate the tool if you wanted to use it. However, Norton Crypto is apparently quite difficult to uninstall from your computer, and it is automatically installed in new LifeLock instances.

The writers of The Verge debunked the worst scary myths about Norton’s decision to use its customers’ computer and electricity bills for crypto mining, but were concerned about the high fees Norton was charging. They wrote that Norton’s 15% fee was much higher than most crypto mining pool aggregators, observing that “pool operators often take a discount or a fee to get everyone together. However, the fees are usually closer to 1 or 2 percent, which is obviously significantly lower. And, of course, there’s the elephant in the room: anyone using Norton’s software to operate has already paid the company a subscription for their security software…. In real numbers, one night of mining on an RTX 3060 Ti grossed $ 0.66 from Ethereum and cost $ 0.66 in off-peak electricity. Norton took all the profits. Before you can use the cryptocurrency you just mined, you’ll need to transfer it from your Norton wallet to a Coinbase account, which will result in gasoline charges being charged by the Ethereum network.

The fees are likely to eat up your profits and possibly more. Is this the kind of daring Matt Damon is pushing us to take in his pro-crypto-investment TV commercials? No, but getting more people into Ethereum mining increases the pool for those who have already invested, so the outcome is positive for people who are crypto-hype (like those who pay Damon to the hype). Not so much for others. The Winklevoss brothers win; We are losing.

Why would this strategy make sense for Norton, a security software company? Although he dubiously claims that Norton Crypto is a security-focused product, Norton may be simply offering this product to open up new revenue streams for the company. Norton has undoubtedly noticed some disturbing trends with its traditional product line; all companies in the antivirus software industry could soon suffer if they haven’t already. After a 20-year ascent, the independent antivirus software industry may become obsolete within a few years. As with many important tools, antivirus protections are now built into our operating systems, so Apple, Google and Microsoft will provide acceptable virus protection for most personal computer purchases.

As Vice succinctly put it three years ago, “With the rise of security-oriented operating systems like iOS and even Windows 10, a growing number of experts believe that, perhaps, the best days of antivirus software are behind us. People may not need it as much anymore, and in some extreme cases it could pose risks to users. Norton may be responding to the end of its flagship product lifecycle by forcing cryptocurrency mining on a shrinking customer base while the base is still huge, flexible and receptive. It might just be a sane piece for a once ascendant company desperate for a second act.

Norton is now in Ethereum mining and wants your computer to participate. Can McAfee or Kaspersky’s NFT Viral Trading Cards be far behind?

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