2022-01-10

thewayne: (Default)
2022-01-10 09:12 am

Remember the Norton Cryptominer I wrote about last week? The story continues....

Symantec 360, owned by the somewhat dubious NortonLifeLock installs a cryptominer for Ethereum and takes 15% off the top. Let's face it: that's a great business model for NLL! Free money for people who aren't smart enough to install their own miner or who just don't care!

Well, they didn't stop there.

There's a German anti-virus package called Avira that is or was available for free. They were acquired by NortonLifeLock. And now 500,000,000 Avira users are having a cryptominer being pushed on them by NLL to mine Ethereum - complete with the 15% shaved off the top back to their corporate overlord NortonLifeLock.

It's good to be the king! Or at least the corporation controlling your software!

Personally, for the PC I recommend Zone Alarm Pro. Very solid software that I've used for years, does a good job with firewall replacing Microsoft's and also with anti-virus and anti-malware. And they sell a package that lets you install it on multiple PCs for what I consider a reasonable price - I pay for my gaming laptop and my dad's rig in Phoenix.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/01/500m-avira-antivirus-users-introduced-to-cryptomining/