Symantec has made its Norton Core secure Wi-Fi router, designed for the consumer market, available in New Zealand, through Harvey Norman.
The product has been available in the US since mid 2017 – it was announced in June 2017 - and in Australia, also through Harvey Norman, since May 2018.
The product sells for $449.95. That's a hefty markup on its US prices of $US199.99 ($304.03) and when we checked on 23 Augusts, Symantec was offering it to US customers at the discounted price of $US179.99, with free shipping.
The Norton Core comes with a one-year subscription to Norton Core Security Plus, which provides protection for connected devices in the home and up to 10 desktops, laptops and mobile devices.
Symantec says the Norton Core has been built specifically with security in mind to help protect connected homes. It uses deep packet inspection and intelligence from Symantec’s global threat database.
Parental controls enable parents to monitor and manage screen time separately for each child, control time limits by device, and set content filters.
Security Score “provides users with a readout on their network’s weaknesses and timely insights and advice on ways to improve their score.” A bandwidth optimisation features can gives priority to any device or activity in the house, for example giving a movie higher priority than a game console.
According to Symantec Norton Core monitors internet traffic flowing to and from IoT devices and flags anything that deviates from the norm sends up a red flag.
“Every network packet incoming and outgoing across the home network is scanned for malware, viruses, spam, intrusions, and much more,” Symantec says.
“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.
“From there, Norton Core can isolate compromised devices — or take them offline entirely,” it says. “As a result, with the Core, home security doesn’t depend on individual manufacturers to issue fixes or users to install them.”
The Norton Core also scans PCs, laptops, tablets and phones for malware, intrusions and spam, and it comes with a subscription to Norton Core Security software that can be installed on connected personal PCs, Macs and Android and iOS devices.
On the Wi-Fi side, the Norton Core supports 802.11ac with 4x4 MU-MIMO and, according to Symantec “innovative phased-array antenna design, combined with advanced beamforming [to provide] unbelievable coverage and range.”