To further strengthen consumers confidence when conducting transactions online, Norton Confidential increases protection when consumers are most at risk - at the very moment they begin sharing their sensitive, confidential personal information like passwords and account numbers

Norton Confidential provides consumers with an unprecedented, dual level of protection against the most dangerous tools in an attacker's toolkit: fraudulent phishing Web sites and eavesdropping crimeware. Most importantly, Norton Confidential takes the guesswork out of security with clear visual indicators that let consumers know if it's safe to conduct business online.

Symantec's most recent Internet Security Threat Report found that during the period of January - June 2006, 30 of the top 50 malicious code samples exposed a user's confidential information. Norton Confidential is the only transaction security product to protect against both phishing and crimeware with a single solution. Not only are consumers blocked or warned from visiting phishing Web sites, but the anti-crimeware protection in Norton Confidential focuses on blocking keystroke logging and screencapture attempts from eavesdropping software at the very point of an online transaction.

"A comprehensive transaction security solution that addresses online fraud at both the phishing and crimeware level is what today's connected consumer needs," said Jonathan Singer, analyst, Yankee Group. "Computer users are less trusting of the Internet and the transactions they conduct online. A product like Norton Confidential addresses a growing market need and helps strengthen and secure consumer trust online."

Norton Confidential is scheduled to be available for purchase through the Symantec online store at www.symantecstore.com as well as various retail locations and online retailers in October 2006. The suggested retail price of Norton Confidential is US$49.99 (includes one-year service subscription to use the product and receive Symantec's protection updates via LiveUpdate and new product functionality as available).

Additionally company announced that Symantec Veritas NetBackup 6.0 received the highest possible rating, a "Strong Positive", in Gartner's "MarketScope: Enterprise Backup/Recovery Software, 2006." Symantec was one of nine vendors evaluated for the report.

Gartner's MarketScope report evaluates how vendors measure against criteria for the enterprise backup and recovery market. According to Gartner, vendors must be able to understand buyers wants and needs and translate those into products and services. It is also important that a vendor's approach to product development and delivery emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology, and feature set as they map to current and future requirements.

NetBackup 6.0 continues Symantec's consistent leadership in backup and recovery. In Gartner's MarketScope assessment vendors are evaluated against six criteria: market understanding, marketing strategy, offering (product) strategy, product/service, market responsiveness and track record, and marketing execution. Vendors who receive a "Strong Positive" rating are considered solid providers of strategic products, services or solutions.

"We believe Gartner's 'Strong Positive' rating confirms that Symantec is not only a leader in the backup and recovery market in terms of market share and customer adoption, but is also a leader in terms of innovation," said Rick Huebsch, vice president, Symantec Corporation. "Symantec is delivering a true enterprise recovery platform, which customers can standardize on from remote office to desktop to the data center." According to the Gartner report, "The backup market continues to transform as new recovery technologies provide alternatives to tape backup."

NetBackup delivers high-performance protection that scales to protect the largest UNIX, Windows, Linux, and NetWare environments. Specifically, the 6.0 release is a major milestone for the NetBackup platform, adding high-value features and functionality including unparalleled leveraging of disk for backup and recovery, integrated disaster recovery capabilities with Bare Metal Restore, and next-generation management with NetBackup Operations Manager. Additionally, NetBackup Pure Disk Remote Office Edition extends the NetBackup platform to protect remote offices centrally.