Understanding Norton 360 alerts and messages

Norton 360 quietly protects your PC from viruses and other threats running in the background. At the same time it shows its current status in the notification area of your Windows desktop as a small tray icon.

The green badge on the Norton 360 status icon shows that your protection status is fine. Watch closely this small icon as colors may change over time providing important information about your protection level.

If the badge color changes to yellow or red, it that some items require your attention and you should open Norton 360 Main Window to examine the issues encountered more closely.

Managing alerts and messages in Norton 360

Norton 360 displays messages in several ways:

• Notification area of your desktop / tray icon
  Many of the alerts, notifications and messages Norton 360 produces appear in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar.

  If a problem occurs, you can click the alert to open Norton 360 and investigate the issue.

• Norton 360 main window overall status
  Norton 360 messages appear at the top of the main window. Watch them closely as the color they display tells you about the urgency of a message. If the message color is green, your computer is sane and optimally protected.

  If the message color changes to red or yellow, further steps are required from your side to resolve the issue.

• Norton 360 protection areas
  Norton 360 displays individual status areas for each protection category. These are Backup, Identity Protection, PC Security, and PC Tuneup.

  The status areas indicate if an area has unresolved issues and if they require your attention. For more info, click View Details under each protection section status. You can also use the Fix All button to resolve all issues automatically.

Types of risks

A risk can be any circumstance that exposes your computer to potential security breach, loss of data or hacker attack. However, using Norton 360 you are protected from a selection of risks.

Risks fall into several categories:

• Vulnerabilities
  Vulnerabilities are flaws in code design in legitimate software applications that can be exploited by a malicious virus or person to either steal confidential information or cause damage of data. Vulnerabilities are often found in official releases of popular software packages and are usually exploited through network connections.
• Spyware
  Aka spying software is a malware that runs hidden on your computer to hijack keystrokes you type or logins and passwords you send over the Internet. Spyware can also search for confidential information stored on your hard disk.
• Malicious software
  Malicious software has been solely designed to destroy files on your hard disk. Malicious software is often referred to as malware.

Types of threats

Threats are software that have been produced to block, destroy, or modify your data.

There are various types of threats including the following:

• Viruses
  Viruses can cause serious damage or be completely harmless, depending on what's on their creator's mind. Viruses tend to replicate themselves automatically, appending their code to newly infected files.
• Worms
  Worms are like viruses in that they can replicate automatically, but they usually don't attach themselves to other applications or files.
• Trojan horses
  Trojan horses are malicious software that claim to be some other type of program. For example, you download a free CD-ripping tool that turns out to have erased your boot sector and your PC won't start anymore.

Types of viruses

A virus is a small program attached to other software or files, that can damage files or modify the way your computer works without your consent or knowledge.

To be a virus, a program must fulfill the following criteria: It must Run on its own without requiring you to take any action, and it must replicate itself automatically spreading across many computers.

Norton 360 can deal with most virus infections. Make sure your definitions are up-to-date and your protection status indicates green at all times.

Viruses can be categorized as follows:

• File infectors
  These viruses infect applications and their accompanying files. When infected files run, viruses spread themselves infecting other programs and files they find.
• Boot viruses
  Boot viruses hide themselves in system areas or boot sector of the hard disk making it hard to discover them. They only become active as you restart your machine.
• Macro viruses
  Macro viruses are hidden in executable components or Microsoft Word or Excel files or similar applications that can execute attachable code.

Norton 360 protects your computer from both unrecognized and known viruses viruses. Known viruses are automatically blocked and removed while unknown threats are identified by analyzing each executable file for various characteristics common to viruses.