Norton Confidential: A Lie Detector for Your Computer

Enough with playing Sherlock Holmes in cyberspace! Yes, there are some detective tricks to figuring out which sites are bona fide and which are fakes, but I've often wished that I could just put a lie detector up in the corner of my screen.

Symantec's new Norton Confidential wants to be your personal lie detector. It's the latest in a new genre of consumer software, sometimes called online transaction software, designed to let you do things like bank, shop, and provide personal information with a greater degree of comfort.

Norton Confidential puts a toolbar alongside your browser's toolbar that provides constant feedback about your safety. It will flag phishing web sites (sites that look authentic but are looking to separate you from your information) and provide extra security the instant you begin to relinquish any personal information. If you head to a site that doesn't pass the NCO test you'll see a red flag. It'll also flag and differentiate between known fraudulent sites and suspicious sites, constantly updating the list.

As soon as you log on to a site, NCO springs into action with another check—looking through your computer's memory to make sure that no crimeware has placed an executable file on your machine. Finally, it manages and secures your passwords. It'll keep all your names and passwords in a secure place so you can have a different password on every site and create more obscure passwords without the fear of losing them. If it detects a suspicious site, you'll be blocked from sending your password immediately.

When I spoke with the folks from Symantec, they likened some of the procedures they used in this $50 consumer program to some of procedures that have traditionally been run on software used in banks, brokerages, and top transaction sites. Microsoft's IE7 introduced some of the same features, and McAfee SiteAdvisor also notifies you about a site's safe status. But, according to PC Magazine columnist Neil Rubenking, Norton Confidential has the highest rate of recognizing and flagging a site correctly.

Remember, NCO isn't meant to replace the tools you already use—anti-virus or anti-spam software, for example—it just wants to make sure you're hanging out on the good side of Internet Street.