Mobility

Symantec's Norton Core Router Aims to Protect Connected Devices

The new router offers real-time network security for businesses that have gadgets connected to the Internet of Things.

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Phil Goldstein is a former web editor of the CDW family of tech magazines and a veteran technology journalist. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their animals: a dog named Brenna, and two cats, Grady and Princess.

Norton by Symantec unveiled a router designed to keep your network safe from the growing number of devices businesses and individuals are connecting to the internet. The Norton Core router, which Symantec unveiled at the CES 2017 conference in Las Vegas, was built to secure connected devices inside homes, but could be applied to small business environments with devices connected to the Internet of Things.

In October, the world became more aware of the perils posed by connected devices after hackers used a piece of malware called Mirai to infect poorly secured connected devices and then turn them into botnets, which then carried out distributed denial of service attacks against the domain name system provider Dyn. That attack temporarily cut off access to a whole host of internet services Dyn routed traffic to.

According to Symantec, every network packet incoming and outgoing across the network is scanned for malware, viruses, spam, intrusions, and other vulnerabilities. If a connected device is detected with known vulnerabilities or threats, Norton Core can immediately quarantine the device to a segregated network and send an alert to the user, according to Symantec.

As The Verge explains: "Instead of trying to secure devices one by one, the Core solves the problem at the network level, using the router as a hub to monitor traffic from every device at once."

The Norton Core offers protection for up to 20 PCs, Macs, Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, plus unlimited IoT devices.