Product Reviews

Along with viruses and hackers, the big online threat that everyone is talking about is phishing. Here, criminals trick internet users into giving up personal information, which they then use for their own purposes. In one of the most common forms of phishing, the criminal sends their intended victim an email that looks as if it's from a reputable bank, online store or other business. The mail includes a link to a website that looks just like the site of the business the phisher is impersonating. When the victim logs in to the fake site, the phisher gathers their login details and uses them to rob the victim.

Symantec's Norton Confidential claims to be able to protect you against phishers. It does this by recording all your usernames and passwords as you enter them into a website. If you later try to enter the same login details into a site with a different web address, Norton Confidential warns you that this isn't the site you previously logged in to. This can be tedious if you use the same login details for lots of sites, but then you shouldn't do that anyway. If you're about to send personal details to a site that looks like your bank's website but

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isn't, Confidential will warn you that the site isn't what it seems.

As well as guarding your passwords, the program monitors the websites you visit for signs that they might be phishing sites. It also has a built-in malware scanner that scans your PC and checks any files you download to see if they're dangerous.

This all sounds useful, but there are a few catches. First, the price is incredibly high for an application that's basically an Internet Explorer plug-in. Second, the program works only with Internet Explorer, and not Opera or Firefox. You have to use the least secure of the three major web browsers to enjoy the 'extra' security Norton Confidential provides. As for the malware component, it falsely identified part of our anti-virus program (from a vendor other than Symantec) as a dangerous file. If we'd followed Confidential's advice and got rid of the file we would have damaged our anti-virus software.

This does not mean you're defenceless against the phishers. If you get an email that looks as if it's from your bank, credit card company, an online store or a similar institution asking you to verify your personal details, ignore it. A legitimate business will not contact you in this way for this purpose. Download the latest version of Internet Explorer or Firefox, as they have built-in phishing filters. Get a good anti-virus program, such as Kaspersky AntiVirus, as it will protect you against a far greater range of malware than Norton Confidential.

Phishing has been in the headlines recently, which is probably why Symantec has brought out this software. Don't be panicked into parting with your cash, though, as the latest version of your web browser and a little common sense will protect you just as well.