Symantec enlists ordinary users to help chase down cybercriminals

Symantec is preparing to enlist ordinary users in hunting down cybercriminals in an announcement of its new Norton Internet Security suite coming on Wednesday.

The security software company realizes that the strategy of blocking criminal hackers from getting valuable data isn’t working well enough, according to a Business Week article. The new suite of security software will include Norton Community Watch, which collects the data. Another feature dubbed Autopsy puts suspicious software in a quarantine and tells the user what location it came from.

Symantec will ask users to opt into a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions. It will forward the data to authorities, who can get a real-time sense of what attacks are underway at any given moment.

The idea of “crowdsourcing” user data is gaining popularity. Immunet has launched a cloud-based antivirus technology that determines whether it’s safe for you to open a file or take some action, based on how many other users have done the same thing safely in the past.

Symantec said it will start posting the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted criminal hackers on its web site with descriptions of the sorts of schemes they use to trick users out of their data or personal information. Next year, the company will start offering bounties for information leading to an arrest.

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