Norton360 antivirus is getting crypto-mining as craze for cryptocurrency opens doors for malware

Norton360’s new mining feature, however, will not remain entirely free of charge.

If you understand cryptocurrencies, you must be aware of the quintessential process called mining. People today are a lot more curious about cryptocurrencies than they have ever been, thanks to witty, impactful, and insightful tweets from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Keeping aside Musk’s tryst with cryptocurrencies, the biggest picture here says that with increased mining, the risks have increased manifold. And that is why, for the first time, antivirus software is adding a mining function. NortonLifeLock announced it is adding the Norton Crypto mining function for Ethereum to the Norton360 antivirus software. This feature is going to be available to paid users of the software, but those who are a part of the early adopter programme can get their hands on it right now. According to NortonLifeLock, the need for such a feature inside antivirus software was realised with the increasing risks that mining may pose to the user and the computer because users will download “unvetted” crypto-mining programmes that may contain malware or be programmed to skim the earnings of the user. For now, Norton Crypto only allows mining of Ethereum and within the secure environment, which, according to the company, prevents users from “opening themselves and their devices up to these pitfalls.” There is a Norton Crypto Wallet that users can use to transfer their earned cryptocurrency and manage transactions. And since this wallet stores data in the cloud, there is no risk of losing it due to hard drive failure.