Our cybersecurity needs are constantly evolving, with brand new threats and nefarious malware showing up every day. The more our everyday lives become interconnected with our online profiles and digital identities, the more compelling targets we become for bad actors, identity thieves, and ransomware schemes.
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Norton 360
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One of the best and easiest solutions to protect yourself and your household is finding a holistic cyber security package that best suits your specific needs. Norton Internet Security is a PCMag Editors’ Choice winner for their security suites, and a leader in the cybersecurity industry. Their most popular offerings: Norton 360, brings multiple layers of protection for your devices, with industry leading online privacy features including a secure VPN and Dark Web Monitoring. Norton 360 is designed to operate on both PC and Mac, as well as smartphones/tablets.
How Badly Do I Need Internet Security?
Simply put, there has never been a more dangerous time to surf the web. If you work remotely or do any banking or confidential business from a personal device, you’re putting both your data and yourself at risk. Norton reports that it blocks approximately 11 million+ threats every single day for its users, with a January 2022 report listing 3.6 billion threats blocked over the course of 2021. This included 54 million phishing emails, 221 million cases of file-based malware, and 253,063 potentially devastating ransomware attacks.
2021 also saw some incredibly high profile data breaches on popular services such as LinkedIn, Amazon-owned gamer streaming platform Twitch, online trading platform Robinhood, and an adult webcam site Stripchat. Over the past decade there have been hundreds of data breaches and hacks on hugely popular websites and services, so it’s quite possible that sensitive data of yours has already been compromised.
While you might consider yourself tech savvy (and perhaps you’ve never had a data scare in the past), an important point to consider is that often you’re not the only person using your device. The good ol’ fashioned family computer is a hotbed for all sorts of cyber attacks. The likelihood of a risky download or phishing scam increases exponentially when kids are involved, making parental controls an absolute lifesaver when it comes to curious kids who like to click links. Norton 360 does offer comprehensive parental controls, but to save costs for the smaller households, they aren’t available in all tiers of the service. To form a better idea of what is available and where, let’s take a look at the three most popular Norton Security products in the 360 range.
Standard, Deluxe, Premium: What’s The Difference?
While it may be easy to assume that the more you spend on a security product, the more secure it is, Norton doesn’t actually price this way. All of the Norton 360 packages offer the exact same technology when it comes to their Anti-Spyware, Antivirus, Malware and Ransomware Protection. So if you end up with the Standard package as opposed to Deluxe or Premium, you’ll still be just as secure.
The primary differences between Standard, Deluxe and Premium come down to the number of devices you’ll be protecting, the amount of secure cloud storage you require, and the addition of parental controls and features specifically designed around restricting children’s unsafe internet access.
We’ll go into more detail on each of these options below, but the simple breakdown is this: If you’re just looking to fully protect a single device, Norton 360 Standard should be enough. If you have kids or want to protect up to three devices, Norton 360 Deluxe will do the trick. If you are a power user and plan on regularly backing up your devices to the cloud, you’ll probably want to go straight to the Premium solution.
Inside Norton 360 Products
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Norton 360 Standard – A$99.99 per year
Intro offer of A$59.99 for first year; renews at full pricing.
Norton 360 Standard provides comprehensive protection for 1 PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet. 360 Standard gives you access to multiple layers of security with the same Anti-Spyware, Antivirus, Malware and Ransomware Protection as in Norton AntiVirus Plus, with included access to a secure VPN for safe browsing, and SafeCam for PC to block unauthorized access to your webcam. For your sensitive, crucial files and financial data, you have access to 10GB of cloud storage with PC Cloud Backup. Perfect for locking down the trusty home PC.
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Norton 360 Deluxe – A$149.99 per year
Intro offer of A$69.99 for first year; renews at full pricing.
Norton 360 Deluxe is PCMag Editors’ choice for the best security suite for VPN Enthusiasts. Of the three options, it provides the best value for the most robust personal internet security suite available. 360 Deluxe provides all the protections of 360 Standard for up to 3 devices, online privacy features including Norton Secure VPN, SafeCam for PC, as well as Dark Web Monitoring. It also includes up to 50GB of cloud storage for PC backup and is the cheapest access to Parental Control features such as ‘School Time’, which limits internet access to specifically educational websites and resources during school hours. If you can’t make your mind up and just want to be as safe as possible across multiple devices, this is your best bet.
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Norton 360 Premium – A$194.99 per year
Intro offer of A$84.99 for first year; renews at full pricing.
Much like Norton 360 Deluxe, 360 Premium provides multiple layers of protection for up to 5 devices, online privacy features including Norton Secure VPN, SafeCam for PC and Dark Web Monitoring. For the most part, Premium offers all of the same services as 360 Deluxe. The core difference between Premium and Deluxe is in the allocated storage for Cloud backups and protection for additional devices. Norton 360 Premium offers 100GB of storage to 360 Deluxe’s 50GB.
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If you’re interested in using Norton’s security technology (and given their strong results Test Lab results, you should!) It’s important to also know the differences between each of the offerings in the Norton range, outside of Norton 360. To help with this check out this complete Norton Security guide here, covering all of their offerings currently available in Australia.
