Symantec has established some of the most comprehensive sources of Internet threat data in the world through the Symantec Global Intelligence Network, which is made up of more than 64.6 million attack sensors and records thousands of events per second.

In addition, Symantec maintains one of the world’s most comprehensive vulnerability databases, currently consisting of more than 47,662 recorded vulnerabilities (spanning more than two decades) from over 15,967 vendors representing over 40,006 products.

Spam, phishing and malware data is captured through a variety of sources, including the Symantec Probe Network, a system of more than 5 million decoy accounts; Symantec.cloud and a number of other Symantec security technologies. Skeptic, the Symantec.cloud proprietary heuristic technology is able to detect new and sophisticated targeted threats before reaching customers’ networks. Over 8 billion email messages and more than 1.4 billion Web requests are processed each day across 15 data centers. Symantec also gathers phishing information through an extensive antifraud community of enterprises, security vendors, and more than 50 million consumers.

These resources give Symantec’s analysts unparalleled sources of data with which to identify, analyze, and provide informed commentary on emerging trends in attacks, malicious code activity, phishing, and spam. The result is the annual Symantec Internet Security Threat Report, which gives enterprises and consumers the essential information to secure their systems effectively now and into the future.

Symantec blocked more than 5.5 billion malicious attacks in 2011; an increase of more than 81% from the previous year. This increase was in large part a result of a surge in polymorphic malware attacks, particularly from those found in Web attack kits and socially engineered attacks using email-borne malware. Targeted attacks exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities were potentially the most insidious of these attacks. With a targeted attack, it is almost impossible to know when you are being targeted, as by their very nature they are designed to slip under the radar and evade detection. Unlike these chronic problems, targeted attacks, politically-motivated hacktivist attacks, data breaches and attacks on Certificate Authorities made the headlines in 2011.

Originally developed by Netscape Communications to allow secure access of a browser to a Web server, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) has become the accepted standard for Web security. The first version of SSL was never released because of problems regarding protection of credit card transactions on the Web. In 1994, Netscape created SSLv2, which made it possible to keep credit card numbers confidential and also authenticate the Web server with the use of encryption and digital certificates. In 1995, Netscape strengthened the cryptographic algorithms and resolved many of the security problems in SSLv2 with the release of SSLv3. SSLv3 now supports more security algorithms than SSLv2.

Learn about the latest threats and security trends covered in the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), a comprehensive source of Internet threat data that provides an overview and analysis of the year in global Internet threat activity.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report is one of the most comprehensive sources of Internet threat data in the world. Symantec’s analysts have access to unparalleled sources of data with which to identify, analyze, and provide informed commentary on emerging trends in attacks, malicious code activity, phishing, and spam. The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report gives enterprises and consumers the essential information they need to secure their systems effectively — now, and into the future.

Listen to Kevin Haley, Director, Security Technology and Response share an overview of the highlights of Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report, Volume 17.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report is one of the most comprehensive sources of Internet threat data in the world. Symantec’s analysts have access to unparalleled sources of data with which to identify, analyze, and provide informed commentary on emerging trends in attacks, malicious code activity, phishing, and spam. The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report gives enterprises and consumers the essential information they need to secure their systems effectively — now, and into the future.

JS.Phremous is a worm that copies itself to removable drives and network shares.

The threat JS.Phremous was discovered by Symantec Security Response Threat Severity Assessment on April 30, 2012 and was classified as Worm.

Initial Daily Certified version of virus definitions for Norton security products was released on April 27, 2012 revision 033. It should be noted that users with the older versions of Norton Internet Security are limited to Daily LiveUpdate definitions. For more information, go to the page where the are described virus definitions available for Norton products.

Trojan.Ransomlock.L is a Trojan horse that locks the desktop making the computer unusable. It then asks the user to pay to have it unlocked.

The threat Trojan.Ransomlock.L was discovered by Symantec Security Response Threat Severity Assessment on April 30, 2012 and was classified as Trojan.

Initial Daily Certified version of virus definitions for Norton security products was released on pending. It should be noted that users with the older versions of Norton Internet Security are limited to Daily LiveUpdate definitions. For more information, go to the page where the are described virus definitions available for Norton products.

Security Updates give the most recent protection content for Norton Internet Security, which protect networked critical systems and remote and mobile users from unwanted network intrusions and hackers, as well as from viruses, Trojans, and worms.

To download and install the Security Update 601 you need to run LiveUpdate feature of Norton Internet Security product. Please note that LiveUpdate definition identifier of Security Update 601 is 20120427.001 and its description was last modified on April 27, 2012 2:08:53 PM PDT.