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Gen Digital Inc. (formerly Symantec Corporation and NortonLifeLock) is a multinational
software company A software company is a company whose primary products are various forms of software, software technology, distribution, and software product development. They make up the software industry. Types There are a number of different types of soft ...
co-headquartered in
Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...
and
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, Czech Republic. The company provides
cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
and services. Gen is a
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
company and a member of the
S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of D ...
stock-market index. The company also has development centers in
Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...
,
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
and
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
. Its portfolio includes
Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...
, Avast,
LifeLock LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock's system monitors for identity theft, the use of personal information, and credit score changes. LifeLock was acquired by computer security compan ...
,
Avira Avira Operations GmbH is a German multinational computer security software company mainly known for their Avira Free Security antivirus software. Avira was founded in 2006, but the antivirus application has been under active development since ...
, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner. On October 9, 2014, Symantec declared it would split into two independent publicly traded companies by the end of 2015. One company would focus on security, the other on
information management Information management (IM) concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal throug ...
. On January 29, 2016, Symantec sold its information-management subsidiary, named
Veritas Technologies Veritas Technologies LLC. is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stor ...
, and which Symantec had acquired in 2004, to
The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...
. On August 9, 2019,
Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
announced they would be acquiring the Enterprise Security software division of Symantec for $10.7 billion, and the company became known as NortonLifeLock. After completing their merger with Avast in September 2022, the company adopted the name Gen Digital Inc.


History


1982 to 1989

Founded in 1982 by Gary Hendrix with a
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
grant, Symantec was originally focused on
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
-related projects, including a database program. Hendrix hired several
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...
researchers as the company's first employees. In 1984, it became clear that the advanced natural language and database system that Symantec had developed could not be ported from DEC minicomputers to the PC. This left Symantec without a product, but with expertise in natural language database query systems and technology. As a result, later in 1984 Symantec was acquired by another, smaller software startup company, C&E Software, founded by Denis Coleman and
Gordon Eubanks Gordon Edwin Eubanks, Jr. (born November 7, 1946) is an American microcomputer industry pioneer who worked with Gary Kildall in the early days of Digital Research (DRI). Eubanks attended Oklahoma State University, where he was involved as a me ...
and headed by Eubanks. C&E Software developed a combined file management and word processing program called Q&A.
Barry Greenstein Barry Greenstein (born December 30, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American professional poker player. He has won a number of major events, including three at the World Series of Poker and two on the World Poker Tour. Greenstein donates his ...
, now a professional poker player, was the principal developer of the word processor component within Q&A. The merged company retained the name Symantec. Eubanks became its chairman, Vern Raburn, the former president of the original Symantec, remained as president of the combined company. The new Symantec combined the file management and word processing functionality that C&E had planned, and added an advanced Natural Language query system (designed by Gary Hendrix and engineered by Dan Gordon) that set new standards for ease of database query and report generation. The natural language system was named "The Intelligent Assistant". Turner chose the name of Q&A for Symantec's flagship product, in large part because the name lent itself to use in a short, easily merchandised logo. Brett Walter designed the user interface of Q&A (Brett Walter, director of product management). Q&A was released in November 1985. During 1986, Vern Raburn and Gordon Eubanks swapped roles, and Eubanks became CEO and president of Symantec, while Raburn became its chairman. After this change, Raburn had little involvement with Symantec, and in a few years, Eubanks added the chairmanship to his other roles. After a slow start for sales of Q&A in the fall of 1985 and spring of 1986, Rod Turner, a Symantec Sr. Executive, signed up a new advertising agency called Elliott/Dickens, embarked on an aggressive new advertising campaign, and came up with the "Six Pack Program" in which all Symantec employees, regardless of role, went on the road, training and selling nationwide in the United States. Turner named it Six Pack because employees were to work six days a week, see six dealerships per day, train six sales representatives per store and stay with friends free or at
Motel 6 Motel 6 is a privately owned hospitality company with a chain of budget motels in the United States and Canada. Motel 6 also operates Studio 6, a chain of Apartment hotel, extended-stay hotels. The hotel brand is owned by The Blackstone Group's ...
. Simultaneously, a promotion was run jointly with SofSell (which was Symantec's exclusive wholesale distributor in the United States for the first year that Q&A was on the market). This promotion was very successful in encouraging dealers to try Q&A. During this time, Symantec was advised by its board members Jim Lally and
John Doerr L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the Pre ...
that if it would cut its expenses and grow revenues enough to achieve cash flow break-even, then
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...
would back the company in raising more
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
. To accomplish this, the management team worked out a salary reduction schedule where the chairman and the CEO would take zero pay, all vice presidents would take a 50% pay cut, and all other employees' pay was cut by 15%. Two employees were laid off. Eubanks also negotiated a sizable rent reduction on the office space the company had leased in the days of the original Symantec. These expense reductions, combined with strong international sales of Q&A, enabled the company to attain break-even. The significantly increased traction for Q&A from this re-launch grew Symantec's revenues substantially, along with early success for Q&A in international markets (uniquely a German version was shipped three weeks after the United States version, and it was the first software in the world that supported German Natural Language) following Turner's having emphasized establishing international sales distribution and multiple language versions of Q&A from the initial shipment. In 1985, Rod Turner negotiated the publishing agreement with David Whitney for Symantec's second product, which Turner named NoteIt (an annotation utility for
Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...
). It was evident to Turner that NoteIt would confuse the dealer channel if it was launched under the Symantec name because Symantec had built up interest by that stage in Q&A (but not yet shipped it), and because the low price for the utility would not be initially attracted to the dealer channel until demand had been built up. Turner felt that the product should be marketed under a unique brand name. Turner and Gordon E. Eubanks Jr., then chairman of Symantec Corporation, agreed to form a new division of Symantec, and Eubanks delegated the choice of name to Turner. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, to be a new division of Symantec devoted to publishing third-party software and hardware. The objective of the division was to diversify revenues and accelerate the growth of Symantec. Turner chose the name Turner Hall Publishing, using his last name and that of Dottie Hall (Director of Marketing Communications) to convey the sense of a stable, long-established, company. Turner Hall Publishing's first offering was Note-It, a notation utility add-in for Lotus 1-2-3, which was developed by David Whitney, and licensed to Symantec. Its second product was the Turner Hall Card, which was a 256k RAM, half slot memory card, initially made to inexpensively increase the available memory for Symantec's flagship product, Q&A. The Turner Hall division also marketed the card as a standalone product. Turner Hall's third product, also a 1-2-3 add-in was SQZ! a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet compression utility developed by Chris Graham Synex Systems. In the summer of 1986 Eubanks and Turner recruited Tom Byers from
Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and ...
, to expand the Turner Hall Publishing product family and lead the Turner Hall effort. By the winter of 1986–87, the Turner Hall Publishing division had achieved success with NoteIt, the Turner Hall Card and SQZ!. The popularity of these products, while contributing a relatively small portion of revenues to Symantec, conveyed the impression that Symantec was already a diversified company, and indeed, many industry participants were under the impression that Symantec had acquired Turner Hall Publishing. In 1987, Byers recruited Ted Schlein into the Turner Hall Product Group to assist in building the product family and in marketing. Revenues from Q&A, and Symantec's early launch into the international marketplace, combined with Turner Hall Publishing, generated the market presence and scale that enabled Symantec to make its first merger/acquisition, in February 1987, that of Breakthrough Software, maker of the TimeLine project management software for DOS. Because this was the first time that Symantec had acquired a business that had revenues, inventory, and customers, Eubanks chose to change nothing at BreakThrough Software for six months, and the actual merger logistics started in the summer of 1987, with Turner being appointed by Eubanks as general manager of the TimeLine business unit, Turner was made responsible for the successful integration of the company into Symantec and ongoing growth of the business, with P&L. There was a heavy emphasis placed on making the minimum disruption by Eubanks and Turner. Soon after the acquisition of TimeLine/Breakthrough Software, Eubanks reorganized Symantec, structuring the company around product-centric groups, each having its development, quality assurance, technical support, and product marketing functions, and a general manager with profit and loss responsibility. Sales, finance, and operations were centralized functions that were shared. This structure lent itself well to Symantec's further growth through mergers and acquisitions. Eubanks made Turner general manager of the new TimeLine Product Group, and simultaneously of the Q&A Product Group, and made Tom Byers general manager of the Turner Hall Product Group. Turner continued to build and lead the company's international business and marketing for the whole company. At the TimeLine Product Group, Turner drove strong marketing, promotion and sales programs to accelerate momentum. By 1989 this merger was very successful—product group morale was high, TimeLine development continued apace, and the increased sales and marketing efforts applied built the TimeLine into the clear market lead in PC project management software on
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
. Both the Q&A and TimeLine product groups were healthily profitable. The profit stream and merger success set the stage for subsequent merger and acquisition activity by the company, and indeed funded the losses of some of the product groups that were subsequently acquired. In 1989, Eubanks hired John Laing as VP worldwide sales, and Turner transferred the international division to Laing. Eubanks also recruited Bob Dykes to be executive vice president for operations and finance, in anticipation of the upcoming IPO. On June 23, 1989 Symantec had its IPO.


1990 to 1999

In May 1990, Symantec announced its intent to merge with and acquire
Peter Norton Computing Peter Norton Computing, Inc., was a software company founded by Peter Norton. The first and best known software package it produced was Norton Utilities. Another successful software package was Norton Commander, especially the DOS version. In 1990 ...
, a developer of various utilities for DOS. Turner was appointed as product group manager for the Norton business, and made responsible for the merger, with P&L responsibility. Ted Schlein was made product group manager for the Q&A business. The Peter Norton group merger logistical effort began immediately while the companies sought approval for the merger, and in August 1990, Symantec concluded the purchase—by this time the combination of the companies was already complete. Symantec's consumer antivirus and data management utilities are still marketed under the
Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...
name. At the time of the merger, Symantec had built upon its Turner Hall Publishing presence in the utility market, by introducing Symantec Antivirus for the Macintosh (SAM), and Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh (SUM). These two products were already market leaders on the Mac, and this success made the Norton merger more strategic. Symantec had already begun the development of a DOS-based antivirus program one year before the merger with Norton. The management team had decided to enter the antivirus market in part because it was felt that the antivirus market entailed a great deal of ongoing work to stay ahead of new viruses. The team felt that Microsoft would be unlikely to find this effort attractive, which would lengthen the viability of the market for Symantec. Turner decided to use the Norton name for obvious reasons, on what became the ''Norton Antivirus'', which Turner and the Norton team launched in 1991. At the time of the merger, Norton revenues were approximately 20 to 25% of the combined entity. By 1993, while being led by Turner, Norton product group revenues had grown to be approximately 82% of Symantec's total. At one time Symantec was also known for its development tools, particularly the THINK Pascal,
THINK C Think C (stylized as THINK C; formerly Lightspeed C) is an extension of the C programming language for the classic Mac OS developed by Think Technologies, released first in mid-1986. THINK was founded by Andrew Singer, Frank Sinton & Mel Conway. ...
, Symantec
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
, Enterprise Developer and Visual Cafe packages that were popular on the
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
and
IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...
platforms. These product lines resulted from acquisitions made by the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These businesses and the Living Videotext acquisition were consistently unprofitable for Symantec, and these losses diverted expenditures away from both the Q&A for Windows and the TimeLine for Windows development efforts during the critical period from 1988 through 1992. Symantec exited this business in the late-1990s as competitors such as
Metrowerks Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product, CodeWarrior, comprised an IDE, compilers, linkers, debuggers, libraries, and related tools. I ...
,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
and Borland gained significant market share. In 1996, Symantec Corporation was alleged of misleading financial statements in violation of
GAAP Gaap (also ''Tap'', ''Coap'', ''Taob'', ''Goap'') is a demon that is described in demonological grimoires such as ''the Lesser Key of Solomon'', Johann Weyer's ''Pseudomonarchia Daemonum'', and the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, as well as Jacq ...
.


2000 to present

From 1999 to April 2009, Symantec was led by CEO
John W. Thompson John Wendell Thompson (born April 24, 1949) is an American technology executive who was the chair of Microsoft from 2014 until June 2021, and chair of Illumina (company), Illumina since 2021. He is a former chief executive of Virtual Instrument ...
, a former VP at IBM. At the time, Thompson was the only African-American leading a major US technology company. He was succeeded in April 2009 by the company's long-time Symantec executive
Enrique Salem Enrique Salem (born 1965) was the president and CEO of software company Symantec from 2009 until 2012, and was a member of the U.S. President's Management Advisory Board. Prior to being CEO of Symantec he was the COO of Symantec. Salem joined Bain ...
. Under Salem, Symantec completed the acquisition of
Verisign Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gene ...
's Certificate Authority business, dramatically increasing their share of that market. In 2009, Symantec released a list of the then "100 dirtiest websites", which contain the most
malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...
as detected by
Norton Safe Web Norton Safe Web (sometimes abbreviated NSW) is a service developed by Symantec Corporation that is designed to help users identify malicious websites. Safe Web delivers information about websites based on automated analysis and user feedback. T ...
. Salem was abruptly fired in 2012 for disappointing earnings performance and replaced by Steve Bennett, a former CEO of Intuit and GE executive. In January 2013, Bennett announced a major corporate reorganization, with a goal of reducing costs and improving Symantec's product line. He said that sales and marketing "had been high costs but did not provide quality outcomes". He concluded that "Our system is just broken". Robert Enderle of CIO.com reviewed the reorganization and noted that Bennett was following the
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
model of being product-focused instead of customer-focused. He concluded "Eliminating middle management removes a large number of highly paid employees. This will tactically improve Symantec's bottom line but reduce the skills needed to ensure high-quality products in the long term." In March 2014, Symantec fired Steve Bennett from his CEO position and named Michael Brown as interim president and chief executive. Including the interim CEO, Symantec has had 3 CEOs in less than two years. On September 25, 2014, Symantec announced the appointment of Michael A. Brown as its president and chief executive officer. Brown had served as the company's interim president and chief executive officer since March 20, 2014. Mr. Brown has served as a member of the company's board of directors since July 2005 following the acquisition of VERITAS Software Corporation. Mr. Brown had served on the VERITAS board of directors since 2003. In July 2016, Symantec introduced a product to help carmakers protect connected vehicles against zero-day attacks. The Symantec Anomaly Detection for Automotive is an IoT product for manufacturers and uses machine learning to provide in-vehicle security analytics. Greg Clark assumed the position of CEO in August 2016. In November 2016, Symantec announced its intent to acquire
identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was co ...
protection company
LifeLock LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock's system monitors for identity theft, the use of personal information, and credit score changes. LifeLock was acquired by computer security compan ...
for $2.3 billion. In August 2017, Symantec announced that it had agreed to sell its business unit that verifies the identity of websites to
Thoma Bravo Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under manage ...
. With this acquisition, Thoma Bravo plans to merge the Symantec business unit with its own web certification company,
DigiCert DigiCert, Inc. is an American digital security company headquartered in Lehi, Utah, with offices in Australia, Ireland, Japan, India, France, South Africa, Switzerland and United Kingdom. As a certificate authority (CA) and trusted third party, ...
. On January 4, 2018, Symantec and BT (formerly British Telecom) announced their partnership that provides new endpoint security protection. In May 2018, Symantec initiated an internal audit to address concerns raised by a former employee, causing it to delay its annual earnings report. In August 2018, Symantec announced that the
hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...
Starboard Value Starboard Value is an American hedge fund that was founded in 2002 by Jeffrey Smith and Mark Mitchell with Smith serving as CEO.Butt, Rachel; Here are the 10 biggest activist money managers and some of their most impressive bets; Business Inside ...
had put forward five nominees to stand for election to the Symantec board of directors at Symantec's 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. This followed a
Schedule 13D Schedule 13D is an SEC filing that must be submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission within 10 days by anyone who acquires beneficial ownership of more than 5% of any class of publicly traded securities in a public company. A filer mu ...
br>filing
by Starboard showing that it had accumulated a 5.8% stake in Symantec. In September 2018, Symante
announced
that three nominees of Starboard were joining the Symantec board, two with immediate effect (including Starboard Managing Membe
Peter Feld
and one following the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. On May 9, 2019, Symantec announced that Clark would be stepping down and that board member Rick Hill, previously put forward by Starboard, had been appointed interim president and CEO. Vincent Pilette also joined Symantec as its new CFO. On August 9, 2019,
Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
announced they would be acquiring the Enterprise software division of Symantec for $10.7 billion. This is after having attempted to purchase the whole company. The Norton family of products will remain in the Symantec portfolio. The sale closed November 4, 2019, and subsequently, the company adopted the NortonLifeLock name and relocated its headquarters from Mountain View, California to LifeLock's offices in Tempe, Arizona. In 2021, a crypto-miner was added to the
Norton 360 Norton 360, developed by Symantec, was an “all-in-one” security suite for the consumer market. It was first released in 2007, but was discontinued in 2014; its features were carried over to its successor, Norton Security. In 2019, Symant ...
product, called Norton Crypto. Once activated by the user, Norton Crypto mines Ethereum (ETH) using the installed machine's graphics card while idle. The program also creates a secure wallet on the same machine.Norton announced it was permanently disabling the feature on September 14, 2022, due to the Ethereum merge.


Demerger

On October 9, 2014, Symantec declared that the company would separate into two independent publicly traded companies by the end of 2015. Symantec will continue to focus on security, while a new company will be established focusing on information management. Symantec confirmed on January 28, 2015, that the information management business would be called Veritas Technologies Corporation, marking a return of the
Veritas Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of Honesty, truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: ). The German phi ...
name. In August 2015, Symantec agreed to sell Veritas to a private equity group led by
The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...
for $8 billion. The sale was completed by February 2016, turning Veritas into a privately owned company.


Products


Norton

Norton product line includes
Norton AntiVirus Norton AntiVirus is an anti-virus or anti-malware software product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Gen Digital since 1990 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. It uses signatures and heuristics to i ...
,
Norton Security Norton Security is a cross-platform security suite that provides subscription-based real-time malware prevention and removal in addition to identity theft protection and performance tuning tools. Other features include a personal firewall, emai ...
, Norton Small Business,
Norton Family Norton Family (previously known as Online Family.Norton and Norton Online Family) is an American cloud-based parental control service.Messmer, Ellen"Norton Online Family gives parents new tools to monitor kids" Network World, February 17, 2009, a ...
, Norton Mobile Security, Norton Online Backup,
Norton 360 Norton 360, developed by Symantec, was an “all-in-one” security suite for the consumer market. It was first released in 2007, but was discontinued in 2014; its features were carried over to its successor, Norton Security. In 2019, Symant ...
,
Norton Utilities Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain a computer. The latest version of the original series of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released 26 Oc ...
and Norton Computer Tune Up. Norton's line also includes
LifeLock LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock's system monitors for identity theft, the use of personal information, and credit score changes. LifeLock was acquired by computer security compan ...
and ReputationDefender. In 2012, PCTools iAntiVirus was rebranded as a Norton product under the name ''iAntivirus'', and released to the
Mac App Store The App Store (also known as the Mac App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" ...
. Also in 2012, the Norton Partner Portal was relaunched to support sales to consumers throughout the EMEA technologies.


Avast

Avast product line includes
Avast Antivirus Avast Antivirus is a family of cross-platform internet security applications developed by Avast for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. The Avast Antivirus products include freeware and paid versions that provide computer security, brows ...
, Avast Premium Security, Avast Cleanup,
Avast Secure Browser Avast Secure Browser (formerly Avast! SafeZone) is an Avast Software web browser included for optional installation in the Avast Antivirus installer since 2016, but it is also available on its website. It is based on the open source Chromium pr ...
, and
Avast SecureLine VPN Avast SecureLine VPN is a VPN service developed by Czech cybersecurity software company Avast. It is available for Android, Microsoft Windows, macOS and iOS operating systems. The VPN can be set to automatically turn on when the user connects t ...
. As of 2017, it is the most popular antivirus vendor on the market and it had the largest market share.


AVG

AVG product line includes
AVG AntiVirus AVG AntiVirus (previously known as AVG, an abbreviation of Anti-Virus Guard) is a line of antivirus software developed by AVG Technologies, a subsidiary of Avast, a part of Gen Digital. It is available for Windows, macOS and Android. Hist ...
, AVG Internet Security, AVG Secure VPN, AVG PC TuneUp, and AVG Driver Updater. Previously a publicly company in February 2012, it was acquired by Avast in July 2016 for $1.3 billion.


Avira

Avira product line includes Avira Free Security, Avira Internet Security, Avira Prime and Avira Phantom VPN.


Other

Other products which offered by Gen Digital includes CCleaner,
Recuva Recuva () is an undeletion program for Windows, developed by Piriform Software. It is able to undelete files that have been marked as deleted; the operating system marks the areas of the disk in which they were stored as free space. Recuva can ...
, Speccy, Defraggler, HMA, and
SONAR Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...
.


Mergers and acquisitions


ACT!

In 1993, Symantec acquired ACT! from Contact Software International. Symantec sold ACT! to SalesLogix in 1999. At the time it was the world's most popular CRM application for Windows and Macintosh.


Veritas

On December 16, 2004,
Veritas Software Veritas Technologies LLC. is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stor ...
and Symantec announced their plans for a merger. With Veritas valued at $13.5 billion, it was the largest software industry merger to date. Symantec's shareholders voted to approve the merger on June 24, 2005; the deal closed successfully on July 2, 2005. July 5, 2005, was the first day of business for the U.S. offices of the new, combined software company. As a result of this merger, Symantec includes storage- and availability-related products in its portfolio, namely
Veritas File System The VERITAS File System (or VxFS; called JFS and OnlineJFS in HP-UX) is an extent-based file system. It was originally developed by VERITAS Software. Through an OEM agreement, VxFS is used as the primary filesystem of the HP-UX operating s ...
(VxFS), Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM),
Veritas Volume Replicator Veritas Technologies LLC. is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stor ...
(VVR), Veritas Cluster Server (VCS), NetBackup (NBU), Backup Exec (BE) and Enterprise Vault (EV). On January 29, 2016, Symantec sold
Veritas Technologies Veritas Technologies LLC. is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stor ...
to
The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...
.


Sygate

On August 16, 2005, Symantec acquired Sygate, a security software firm based in Fremont, California, with about 200 staff. As of November 30, 2005, all Sygate personal firewall products were discontinued.


Altiris

On January 29, 2007, Symantec announced plans to acquire
Altiris Altiris Inc. is a subsidiary of Symantec specializing in service-oriented management software which allows organizations to manage IT assets. They also provide software for web services, security, and systems management products. Established in ...
, and on April 6, 2007, the acquisition was completed. Altiris specializes in service-oriented management software that allows organizations to manage IT assets. It also provides software for web services, security and systems management products. Established in 1998, Altiris is headquartered in Lindon,
Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
.


Vontu

On November 5, 2007, Symantec announced its acquisition of Vontu, a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) company, for $350 million.


Application Performance Management business

On January 17, 2008, Symantec announced that it was spinning off its Application Performance Management (APM) business and the i3 product line to Vector Capital. Precise Software Solutions took over development, product management, marketing and sales for the APM business, launching as an independent company on September 17, 2008.


PC Tools

On August 18, 2008, Symantec announced the signing of an agreement to acquire PC Tools. Under the agreement, PC Tools would maintain separate operations. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. In May 2013, Symantec announced they were discontinuing the PC Tools line of internet security software. In December 2013, Symantec announced they were discontinuing and retiring the entire PC Tools brand and offering a non-expiring license to PC Tools Performance Toolkit, PC Tools Registry Mechanic, PC Tools File Recover and PC Tools Privacy Guardian users with an active subscription as of December 4, 2013.


AppStream

On April 18, 2008, Symantec completed the acquisition of AppStream, Inc. (“AppStream”), a nonpublic Palo Alto, California-based provider of endpoint virtualization software. AppStream was acquired to complement Symantec's endpoint management and virtualization portfolio and strategy.


MessageLabs

On October 9, 2008, Symantec announced its intent to acquire Gloucester-based MessageLabs (spun off from Star Internet in 2007) to boost its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business. Symantec purchased the online messaging and Web security provider for about $695 million in cash. The acquisition closed on November 17, 2008.


PGP and GuardianEdge

On April 29, 2010, Symantec announced its intent to acquire
PGP Corporation PGP Corporation was a company that sold Pretty Good Privacy computer software. It was founded in 2002, and acquired by Symantec in 2010, and by Broadcom in 2019. History PGP Corporation was co-founded in June 2002 by Jon Callas and Phil Dunkelber ...
and GuardianEdge. The acquisitions closed on June 4, 2010, and provided access to established encryption, key management and technologies to Symantec's customers.


Verisign authentication

On May 19, 2010, Symantec signed a definitive agreement to acquire Verisign's authentication business unit, which included the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Verisign Trust and Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) authentication services. The acquisition closed on August 9, 2010. In August 2012, Symantec completed its rebranding of the Verisign SSL Certificate Service by renaming the Verisign Trust Seal the Norton Secured Seal. Symantec sold the SSL unit to Digicert for US$950 million in mid 2017.


Rulespace

Acquired on October 10, 2010, RuleSpace is a web categorisation product first developed in 1996. The categorisation is, automated using what Symantec refers to as the ''Automated Categorization System (ACS)''. It is used as the base for
content filtering An Internet filter is software that restricts or controls the content an Internet user is capable to access, especially when utilized to restrict material delivered over the Internet via the Web, Email, or other means. Content-control software dete ...
by many UK ISP.


Clearwell Systems

On May 19, 2011, Symantec announced the acquisition of Clearwell Systems for approximately $390 million.


LiveOffice

On January 17, 2012, Symantec announced the acquisition of cloud email-archiving company LiveOffice. The acquisition price was $115 million. Last year, Symantec joined the cloud storage and backup sector with its Enterprise Vault.cloud and Cloud Storage for Enterprise Vault software, in addition to a cloud messaging software, Symantec Instant Messaging Security cloud (IMS.cloud). Symantec stated that the acquisition would add to its information governance products, allowing customers to store information on-premises, in Symantec's data centers, or both.


Odyssey Software

On March 2, 2012, Symantec completed the acquisition of Odyssey Software. Odyssey Software's main product was Athena, which was device management software that extended Microsoft System Center software, adding the ability to manage, support and control mobile and embedded devices, such as smartphones and ruggedized handhelds.


Nukona Inc.

Symantec completed its acquisition of Nukona, a provider of mobile application management (MAM), on April 2, 2012. The acquisition agreement between Symantec and Nukona was announced on March 20, 2012.


NitroDesk Inc.

In May 2014 Symantec acquired NitroDesk, provider of TouchDown, the market-leading third-party EAS mobile application.


Blue Coat Systems

On June 13, 2016, it was announced that Symantec had acquired Blue Coat for $4.65 billion.


LifeLock

In 2017, Symantec acquired
LifeLock LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock's system monitors for identity theft, the use of personal information, and credit score changes. LifeLock was acquired by computer security compan ...
Inc.; this, in turn, prompted the company to rename itself to NortonLifeLock in 2019.


Avira

Norton LifeLock acquired German security firm
Avira Avira Operations GmbH is a German multinational computer security software company mainly known for their Avira Free Security antivirus software. Avira was founded in 2006, but the antivirus application has been under active development since ...
in December 2020 for $360 million.


Avast

In August 2021, Norton agreed to merge with
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...
cybersecurity software company Avast. The UK
Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...
formally cleared the $8.1 billion merger on September 2, 2022.


Security concerns and controversies


Restatement

On August 9, 2004, the company announced that it discovered an error in its calculation of deferred revenue, which represented an accumulated adjustment of $20 million.


Endpoint bug

The arrival of the year 2010 triggered a bug in Symantec Endpoint. Symantec reported that malware and intrusion protection updates with "a date greater than December 31, 2009, 11:59 pm ereconsidered to be 'out of date.'" The company created and distributed a workaround for the issue.


Scan evasion vulnerability

In March 2010, it was reported that Symantec AntiVirus and Symantec Client Security were prone to a vulnerability that might allow an attacker to bypass on-demand virus scanning, and permit malicious files to escape detection.


Denial-of-service attack vulnerabilities

In January 2011, multiple vulnerabilities in Symantec products that could be exploited by a
denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connect ...
, and thereby compromise a system, were reported. The products involved were Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition Server and Symantec System Center. The November 12, 2012 Vulnerability Bulletin of the
United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is an organization within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Specifically, US-CERT is a branch of the Office of ...
(US-CERT) reported the following vulnerability for older versions of Symantec's Antivirus system: "The decomposer engine in Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 11.0, Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 12.0, Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition (SAVCE) 10.x, and Symantec Scan Engine (SSE) before 5.2.8 does not properly perform bounds checks of the contents of CAB archives, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (application crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code via a crafted file." The problem relates to older versions of the systems and a patch is available. US-CERT rated the seriousness of this vulnerability as a 9.7 on a 10-point scale. The "decomposer engine" is a component of the scanning system that opens
containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...
, such as compressed files, so that the scanner can evaluate the files within.


Scareware lawsuit

In January 2012, James Gross filed a lawsuit against Symantec for distributing fake
scareware Scareware is a form of malware which uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat in order to manipulate users into buying unwanted software. Scareware is part of a class of malicious software that includes r ...
scanners that purportedly alerted users of issues with their computers. Gross claimed that after the scan, only some of the errors and problems were corrected, and he was prompted by the scanner to purchase a Symantec app to remove the rest. Gross claimed that he bought the app, but it did not speed up his computer or remove the detected viruses. He hired a digital forensics expert to back up this claim. Symantec denied the allegations and said that it would contest the case. Symantec settled a $11 million fund (up to $9 to more than 1 million eligible customers representing the overpaid amount for the app) and the case was dismissed in court.


Source code theft

On January 17, 2012, Symantec disclosed that its network had been hacked. A hacker known as "Yama Tough" had obtained the
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
for some Symantec software by hacking an Indian government server. Yama Tough released parts of the code and threatened to release more. According to Chris Paden, a Symantec spokesman, the source code that was taken was for Enterprise products that were between five and six years old. On September 25, 2012, an affiliate of the hacker group Anonymous published source code from Norton Utilities. Symantec confirmed that it was part of the code that had been stolen earlier, and that the leak included code for 2006 versions of Norton Utilities, pcAnywhere and Norton Antivirus.


Verisign data breach

In February 2012, it was reported that Verisign's network and data had been hacked repeatedly in 2010, but that the breaches had not been disclosed publicly until they were noted in an SEC filing in October 2011. Verisign did not provide information about whether the breach included its certificate authority business, which was acquired by Symantec in late 2010. Oliver Lavery, director of security and research for nCircle, asked rhetorically, "Can we trust any site using Verisign SSL certificates? Without more clarity, the logical answer is no."


pcAnywhere exploit

On February 17, 2012, details of an exploit of pcAnywhere were posted. The exploit would allow attackers to crash pcAnywhere on computers running
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
. Symantec released a hotfix for the issue twelve days later.


Hacking of ''The New York Times'' network

According to
Mandiant Mandiant is an American cybersecurity firm and a subsidiary of Google. It rose to prominence in February 2013 when it released a report directly implicating China in cyber espionage. In December 2013, Mandiant was acquired by FireEye for $1 bi ...
, Symantec security products used by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' detected only one of 45 pieces of malware that were installed by Chinese hackers on the newspaper's network during three months in late 2012. Symantec responded:
"Advanced attacks like the ones the ''New York Times'' described in the following article, , underscore how important it is for companies, countries and consumers to make sure they are using the full capability of security solutions. The advanced capabilities in our dpoint offerings, including our unique reputation-based technology and behavior-based blocking, specifically target sophisticated attacks. Turning on only the signature-based anti-virus components of dpoint solutions alone snot enough in a world that is changing daily from attacks and threats. We encourage customers to be very aggressive in deploying solutions that offer a combined approach to security. Anti-virus software alone is not enough".


Intellectual Ventures suit

In February 2015, Symantec was found guilty of two counts of patent infringement in a suit by
Intellectual Ventures Intellectual Ventures is an American private equity company that centers on the development and licensing of intellectual property. Intellectual Ventures is one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents, as of 2011. Its business model focuses on ...
Inc and ordered to pay $17 million in compensation and damages, In September 2016, this decision was reversed on appeal by the Federal Circuit.


Sustaining digital certificate security

On September 18, 2015, Google notified Symantec that the latter issued 23 test certificates for five organizations, including Google and Opera, without the domain owners' knowledge. Symantec performed another audit and announced that an additional 164 test certificates were mis-issued for 76 domains and 2,458 test certificates were mis-issued for domains that had never been registered. Google requested that Symantec update the public incident report with proven analysis explaining the details on each of the failures. The company was asked to report all the certificates issued to the Certificate Transparency log henceforth. Symantec has since reported implementing Certificate Transparency for all its SSL Certificates. Above all, Google has insisted that Symantec execute a security audit by a third party and to maintain tamper-proof security audit logs.


Google and Symantec clash on website security checks

On March 24, 2017, Google stated that it had lost confidence in Symantec, after the latest incident of improper certificate issuance. Google says millions of existing Symantec certificates will become untrusted in Google Chrome over the next 12 months. According to Google, Symantec partners issued at least 30,000 certificates of questionable validity over several years, but Symantec disputes that number. Google said Symantec failed to comply with industry standards and could not provide audits showing the necessary documentation. Google's Ryan Sleevi said that Symantec partnered with other CAs (CrossCert (Korea Electronic Certificate Authority), Certisign Certificatadora Digital, Certsuperior S. de R. L. de C.V., and Certisur S.A.) who did not follow proper verification procedures leading to the misissuance of certificates. Following discussions in which Google had required that Symantec migrate Symantec-branded certificate issuance operations a non-Symantec-operated “Managed Partner Infrastructure”, a deal was announced whereby
DigiCert DigiCert, Inc. is an American digital security company headquartered in Lehi, Utah, with offices in Australia, Ireland, Japan, India, France, South Africa, Switzerland and United Kingdom. As a certificate authority (CA) and trusted third party, ...
acquired Symantec's website security business. In September 2017, Google announced that starting with Chrome 66, "Chrome will remove trust in Symantec-issued certificates issued prior to June 1, 2016". Google further stated that "by December 1, 2017, Symantec will transition issuance and operation of publicly-trusted certificates to DigiCert infrastructure, and certificates issued from the old Symantec infrastructure after this date will not be trusted in Chrome." Google predicted that toward the end of October, 2018, with the release of Chrome 70, the browser would omit all trust in Symantec's old infrastructure and all of the certificates it had issued, affecting most certificates chaining to Symantec roots. Mozilla Firefox planned to distrust Symantec-issued certificates in Firefox 63 (released on October 23, 2018), but delivered the change in Firefox 64 (released on December 11, 2018). Apple has also planned to distrust Symantec root certificates. Subsequently, Symantec exited the TLS/SSL segment by selling the SSL unit to
Digicert DigiCert, Inc. is an American digital security company headquartered in Lehi, Utah, with offices in Australia, Ireland, Japan, India, France, South Africa, Switzerland and United Kingdom. As a certificate authority (CA) and trusted third party, ...
for $950 million in mid 2017.


Columbia patent-infringement lawsuit

In May 2022,
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
won $185 million judgement against NortonLifeLock Inc. in a patent-infringement lawsuit. The jury found that Norton willfully infringed the patents related to antivirus fighting malware.


See also

*
Comparison of antivirus software This article compares notable antivirus products and services. It is Wikipedia list article rather than a deep analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Legend The term "on-demand scan" refers to the possibility of performing a manual ...
*
Comparison of computer viruses The compilation of a unified list of computer viruses is made difficult because of naming. To aid the fight against computer viruses and other types of malicious software, many security advisory organizations and developers of anti-virus software ...
*
Huawei Symantec Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. () was a developer, producer and supplier of network security, computer data storage, storage and computing solutions. The joint venture was disbanded in March 2012 when Symantec Corporation, Symantec sold it ...
, a joint venture between Huawei and Symantec * Web blocking in the United Kingdom - Technologies * Symantec behavior analysis technologies
SONAR Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...
and AntiBot * Symantec Online Backup


References


External links

* {{authority control, state=expanded 1982 establishments in California Companies based in Tempe, Arizona Companies based in Prague Companies listed on the Nasdaq Computer security companies Computer security software companies Former certificate authorities Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Multinational companies headquartered in the Czech Republic Software companies established in 1982 Software companies of the United States Software companies of the Czech Republic