Norton anti-virus will offer Ethereum mining to all clients

NortonLifeLock, the company behind the very famous antivirus software, Norton 360 has announced that it will add a feature in its software that allows its customers to mine Ether. The structure named Norton Crypto will be accompanied by a crypto wallet on which users can track and transfer mined tokens without any worries.

While cryptocurrencies remain accessible to everyone, the activity of mining has not been democratized. From year to year, the mining activity built around the PoW protocol, has become the prerogative of an elite subscribed around the mining pools.

For example, for the last 1000 blocks created in the Ethereum blockchain, 3 mining pools have found 55% of the hashrates on the network with sparkpool leading the way for 25% of the new mined Ethers.

The appearance of Norton Crypto on the market would allow anyone to mine Ethereum as long as you have Norton 360 installed on your device.

“With Norton Crypto, our customers can mine cryptocurrencies with just a few clicks, avoiding many barriers to entry into the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” said Gagan Singh, product manager at NortonLifeLock

Nevertheless, don’t think that an ordinary laptop could perform this activity. You need to be more or less equipped with a sophisticated computer to be able to mine Ethereum with Norton 360.

Often, the activity of Ether mining implies a very high exposure to the risks of attacks against the security of one’s device as well as the authorization of “unvetted code”¹ that inappropriately favors the installation of malware (ransomware) that extort the miners’ tokens.

The launch of Norton Crypto on the market is a response to these problems faced by Ethereum miners. With this tool, they will be less exposed to hacking especially since the tokens will be stored in Norton’s cloud.

In the press conference about the project, the director of NortonLifeLock said:

As the cryptoeconomy continues to become a more significant part of our customers’ lives, we want to empower them to mine cryptocurrencies with Norton, a brand they trust. Norton Crypto is another innovative example of how we are extending our cybersecurity platform to protect our customers’ ever-changing digital lives.”