Jordan O'BrienSymantec is not a company often associated with the smart home, or hardware for that. Instead the company is often referred to by its most popular consumer product – Norton AntiVirus. Well, at CES 2017 Symantec is launching what could be the first dedicated antivirus for the smart home – and it’s dubbed Norton Core.
Despite being its very first hardware product, the Norton Core sports an extremely stylish design. In fact, one could say that it looks like a post-modern disco ball with its geometric shape and different colour shades.
Attractive hardware aside, the Norton Core is a mobile-enabled Wi-Fi router that boasts features such as machine learning and Symantec’s threat intelligence to defend the home network from being attacked.
Before launching its first hardware venture, Symantec did some research into the smart home and found that consumers believed that connected devices were built to exacting security standards. Symantec found the complete opposite was actually the case and found more than 50 different categories of IoT devices that had vulnerabilities.
“We’ve all seen the high-profile attacks in recent months and know that hackers are now exploiting an array of connected devices as a new means to access personal and financial information,” says Fran Rosch, executive vice president, Consumer Business Unit, Symantec.
“Norton is extending our digital safety platform in an innovative way – to now include a wireless home router with an atypical artisanal design – to help our customers incorporate security more personally and elegantly into their homes.”
Unlike conventional routers, Norton Core has been specifically developed to protect the connected home from outside attack. That interesting design on the outside was no mistake, as it was inspired by defence and weather radars deployed in the extreme reaches of the globe. The device is also supposed to be part of the home décor, rather than hidden away like some routers.
The security precautions Symantec took when designing the Norton Core include data encryption, secure DNS, automatic security updates and consistent scanning of the network. Every network packet incoming and outgoing across the home network is scanned for malware, viruses, spam, intrusions and more.
It’s not just outside attacks that the Norton Core can defend against. It can also protect children from inappropriate content inside the home, thanks to parental controls which Symantec has included as standard.
Parents can set limits for each child for daily internet use, filter out inappropriate content, and even pause the entire home network so the family can enjoy dinner together. If an attempt is made to visit an unauthorised site, access will be blocked and parents will receive a notification.
It’s not just about security however, after all the Norton Core has been designed to replace a user’s standard Wi-Fi router. To ensure it keeps up with the rest of the industry in terms of networking performance, the Norton Core supports Wave 2 Wi-Fi and is powered by a 1.7GHz dual core processor.
Norton Core will simultaneously transmit at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, so every device connects to the best available band. Norton Core will also support speeds up to 2.5 Gbps3, for fast 4K streaming and lag-free gaming. Using MU-MIMO technology, Norton Core can simultaneously stream to multiple devices, providing maximum bandwidth.
UK availability of the Norton Core has yet to be revealed, although it is showing up on the company’s UK site. Those in the US can expect to grab a Norton-protected Wi-Fi router in the summer however, with pre-orders already available at a lower price of $199.99. Symantec says the MSRP will be $279.99 at launch, and users will receive a one-year complimentary subscription to Norton Core Security Plus with each purchase. Norton Core can be pre-ordered in two distinct colors: Titanium Gold or Granite Grey.