According to the Norton Cybercrime Report from 2011, there are 431 million victims of cybercrime a year, which boils down to 14 victims per second.  This means that a person has a 44% higher chance of being a cybercrime victim than being a victim of physical crime which is at 15%.  An estimated $388 billion per year is lost through cybercrimes.  Most cybercrimes come from viruses or malware, which can easily be acquired in just a simple click of a button.  More men are susceptible to cybercrime, as they are more prone to visiting adult websites laced with viruses and malware and using free Wi-Fi access.

“There is a serious disconnect in how people view the threat of cybercrime,” said Adam Palmer, Norton’s lead cybersecurity advisor. “Over the past 12 months, three times as many adults surveyed have suffered from online crime versus offline crime, yet less than a third of respondents think they are more likely to become a victim of cybercrime than physical world crime in the next year.”

With this, Symantec unveiled the Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2012, the latest version of their security suite for Windows PC that boasts of a tweaked interface for a more user-friendly experience by simplifying it.  This year’s update improves PC performance, as it doesn’t require substantial system resources or RAM, and offers a new System Manager that lets users decide which applications to run on startup and which to prevent from running in order to speed up startup.  There’s also the improved Norton Insight, a feature that tests the trustworthiness of apps.

Norton Management is Symantec’s way of drawing their audience closer to the cloud, as it lets users install and uninstall Norton applications on PCs from a single, cloud-based location, check security status, and see subscription and license information.  This feature will be available when the product officially launches.

Then there’s Identity Safe, the password manager, which has also been upgraded and now syncs your back-up to the cloud.  Bandwidth Awareness is a new feature designed for laptops that allows users to limit or prevent Norton from downloading large amounts of updates, especially when internet connection is limited or when you’re using the hotspot connection on their smartphone, which has bandwidth limits or additional bandwidth charges.

All of the new features combine with Norton’s proven and tested anti-malware, identity protection, network intrusion protection and built-in firewall features, making this suite one of the toughest anti-malware products to date.  Based on PCMag’s actual testing as well as tests done by independent testers, NIS 2012 is the best product to use for cleaning up malware-infested systems and keeping clean systems clean.

“Based on my own tests and independent lab tests, you can hardly do better than Norton AntiVirus 2012 for standalone antivirus protection. Its new interface is easy on the eyes, and its enhanced protective technologies are effective at both cleaning out resistant malware and keeping new infestations out of a clean system. As a bonus, you get intrusion prevention that rivals the top security suites. Norton AntiVirus 2012 is PCMag’s Editors’ Choice for standalone antivirus.”

But the most important thing about using anti-malware services, and this probably is the number one reason why cybercrime is at an alarming high rate these days, is the adherence of people in using them.  Most people I know spend a lot of money on security suites, even going to the extreme of having multiple security suites installed at the same time, but this causes their PC to go bonkers or perform really poorly.  In the end, they end up removing everything, thus exposing their PCs to greater threats.

Contributing author: Mellisa Tolentino