Symantec Unveils Data Security Strategy, Products

At an event in New York City, Symantec, Cupertino, Calif., outlined its strategy and announced several new products and partnerships designed to help consumers and enterprises protect their proprietary information and increase user confidence in the Internet.

"Security 2.0 is not about a new service or one new killer app. Rather it's about mitigating risks in order to seize the amazing opportunities that lie ahead," said Chairman and CEO John Thompson.

"It's about integrating software, services and partnerships to protect customers' most important assets — their information — and their interactions. It's about pulling together an ecosystem that will provide comprehensive protection to consumers all the way up to large enterprises," he said.

Consumer and enterprise-user confidence has been eroded by the numerous threats circulating in the cyber world, from viruses to Trojans to phishing scams, and Symantec is hoping to restore confidence with its 2.0 initiative, according to Thompson.

For the enterprise, the next phase of the game is to keep sensitive information secure, now that viruses and spam have become less of an issue because of filtering technology, Thompson said. Symantec Database Security and its next-generation e-mail solution, Symantec Mail Security 8300 Series, both have features designed to monitor what leaves the enterprise data center.

Symantec Database Security provides real-time data leakage and fraud monitoring, and is capable of producing reports about who has accessed what information stored in the database. The software also uses intelligent profiling to detect any information retrieval that is considered out of the ordinary.

Mail Security 8300 has new content filtering features to help protect against confidential company information and other flagged content from being transmitted via a company's e-mail system. Users can subscribe to add-ons that filter content for compliance with federal regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and HIPPA.

Symantec will also be releasing a Web security filtering product to monitor information sent out through Web portals. On the consumer side, Symantec released several products designed to increase consumer confidence in Web-based financial transactions. The Norton Confidential Online Edition extends protection from phishing, pharming and crimeware attacks to the customers of financial institutions who use the Web to access their accounts.

Symantec also announced partnerships with VeriSign and Accenture to provide customers with security products and services.