Norton Announces Its Own Wireless Router With Security Emphasis

[thiggins]

​

Norton decided it needed to get into the router biz with its CES 2017 announcement.

Read on SmallNetBuilder​

 

[sfx2000]

Hehe... what is Norton now days? Symantec, Intel, who nows? It's like McAffee...

The Norton Core Secure Router will start shipping in the U.S. in summer 2017 and will have an MSRP of $279.99. However for a limited time, a special pre-sale price is set at $199.

I think I'll pass...

But if it can run linux, or better yet, freeBSD, I might be interested...

 

[phrehdd]

I'll look forward to the review of this product and how well its addtional "Norton-esque" features work.

 

[pete y testing]

hi

"Bundled with a year subscription of Norton Core Security Plus,"

that would be my first issue as you are then locked into the brand and its subscription based "security"

"the router can protect up to 20 PCs/Macs and Apple/Android mobile devices,"

this also seems a bit limiting

the pic makes it look ascetically pleasing but i wonder how physically big it is , the ethernet ports make it look about as big as a grapefruit and not a ventilation hole anywhere in sight , makes me wonder how it would handle the summer heat

look forward to seeing how it performs firmware wise as being a first for norton they will have a steep learning curve as the likes of synology and its RT1900

 

[evil_mike]

​

Norton decided it needed to get into the router biz with its CES 2017 announcement.

Read on SmallNetBuilder​

FYI, I asked them to get ahold of you on this, so you can do a review on it (I work for Symantec, but in another part of the business). I'm also trying to get one for myself so I can text it out in my house.

SFX, Norton is Symantec's consumer brand ;-)

 

[RamGuy]

hi

"Bundled with a year subscription of Norton Core Security Plus,"

that would be my first issue as you are then locked into the brand and its subscription based "security"

"the router can protect up to 20 PCs/Macs and Apple/Android mobile devices,"

this also seems a bit limiting

the pic makes it look ascetically pleasing but i wonder how physically big it is , the ethernet ports make it look about as big as a grapefruit and not a ventilation hole anywhere in sight , makes me wonder how it would handle the summer heat

look forward to seeing how it performs firmware wise as being a first for norton they will have a steep learning curve as the likes of synology and its RT1900

From what I've heard there shouldn't be any limitations on how many devices the router itself can protect. But the subscription also gives you access to the full Norton Security software suit, and here you are limited to "only" 20 computers.

I know BitDefender have had something similar, but I have no experience with it. Doesn't sound like a device for me, but I'm interested in seeing how these actually works and what they really do compared to regular routers or routers like the one from Asus with some limited Trend Micro stuff tossed into the firmware.


What does it actually offer in terms of security? With a yearly subscriptions, one have to assume it actually does something. Not just some url matching towards a Symantec database and whatnot. But I highly doubt it will offer any kind of fully fledged threat protection, emulation and anti-virus. As so much traffic on the internet is HTTPS/Encrypted these days the security functionality would be very limited if it doesn't offer some kind of HTTPS Inspection and for some reason I doubt that would be the case.

 

[Wutikorn]

FYI, I asked them to get ahold of you on this, so you can do a review on it (I work for Symantec, but in another part of the business). I'm also trying to get one for myself so I can text it out in my house.

That's great, thanks. I prefer reading detailed reviews from Smallnetbuilder rather than other reviewers such as PC Magazine. I also look forward to you sharing info before it comes out too.

I know BitDefender have had something similar, but I have no experience with it. Doesn't sound like a device for me, but I'm interested in seeing how these actually works and what they really do compared to regular routers or routers like the one from Asus with some limited Trend Micro stuff tossed into the firmware.


What does it actually offer in terms of security? With a yearly subscriptions, one have to assume it actually does something. Not just some url matching towards a Symantec database and whatnot. But I highly doubt it will offer any kind of fully fledged threat protection, emulation and anti-virus. As so much traffic on the internet is HTTPS/Encrypted these days the security functionality would be very limited if it doesn't offer some kind of HTTPS Inspection and for some reason I doubt that would be the case.

The bad thing about BitDefender Box is its LAN port which is not gigabit. I heard the BD Box 2 is coming out soon, it might address several problems found in the first version. If I remember correctly, it gives unlimited devices protections for BD Total Protection as well.

I doubt that it will do HTTPS Inspection(hope it does anyway), but malware will be found more and more in HTTPS compared to HTTP as Chrome will start to report HTTP as insecure, but I still believe most cyber attacks still come from HTTP. From what I know about AiProtection right now, the its idea can be further developed to much better DPI engine for Norton if they do really want it to be great. The AiProtection has been designed to be extremely small to do anything advance, but if Norton controls the hardware, it can add more storage, RAM to handle the engine.

 

[evil_mike]

Yeah, no promises (obviously). I'm a small cog in the wheel, but it sounded like they were definitely interested in reaching out. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

With regards to the protection, I asked about this, and it's talking about software. I don't know the details for sure, but it sounds like the purchase will allow you to install Norton Security (or some flavor of it) on your computers and devices. Obviously, that only includes stuff for which the software is available (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android devices). Network traffic to and from IoT devices will be monitored, which is how it'll determine if there's a compromise, similar to the attacks on the wifi-enabled cameras last year.

Again, this is what I've been able to glean from the limited info I've seen. As I get more, I'll be happy to share it.

 

[pete y testing]

but it sounds like the purchase will allow you to install Norton Security (or some flavor of it) on your computers and devices. Obviously,

if thats the case how is that an improvement over what anyone has now / all norton is doing is supplying its over bloated AV for cheap and its not stopping the attacks at the router at all , just sounds like a sales gimick to me

real time router based security would need to be the middle man and live at the NAT layer on the router not on the comps

if the fact is the norton solution is to just supply bloatwear av to upto 20 computers you can scratch me from looking at it or even consider using it as imho this is not a solution that makes any sense looking forward apart from to try and boost norton user numbers and profit margin yet not resolving any real router security issues they seem to be promising

pete

 

[thiggins]

I met with both Bitdefender and a Norton rep at CES.

Bitdefender: The Bitdefender Gen 2 will be out later this year around summertime. They gave me one of the current models to get a handle on the feature set. I'll probably have Doug give it a go and then do a shorter review when the Gen 2 is available.

Norton: The product is about the size of a softball. It protects all devices on a network by watching for devices doing things they shouldn't, like accessing bad IP addresses, participating in DDoS, etc. 20 licenses for its AV suite are also bundled. You don't have to install them.

Yes, both products involve subscriptions once the initial 1 year bundled coverage expires. It will be up to users to decide if renewing is worth it.

Given the state of the internet these days and poor security on some IoT products, I would not reject subscription based products out of hand.

 

[sfx2000]

Given the state of the internet these days and poor security on some IoT products, I would not reject subscription based products out of hand.

It's quite a bit of effort and cost to maintain signature files - so this is likely to become the norm...

But just dropping in an AV engine doesn't mean things are totally secure - folks still should practice good end-point security as well..

 

[thiggins]

It's quite a bit of effort and cost to maintain signature files - so this is likely to become the norm...

But just dropping in an AV engine doesn't mean things are totally secure - folks still should practice good end-point security as well..

These solutions (and it seems the trend) is monitoring client behavior, especially on outbound traffic, to detect bad actors. Norton adds the AV client on devices that support it.

 

[sfx2000]

These solutions (and it seems the trend) is monitoring client behavior, especially on outbound traffic, to detect bad actors. Norton adds the AV client on devices that support it.

Noticed there was another announcement where the package is preloaded on a residential gateway - which I think is a very good idea - if I recall, the partner there was Arris

That would go a lot further, as these RG's are becoming the dominant form factor for many residential and small business broadband connections.