Symantec to use SONAR to find zero-day attacks

Starting next month, users of Symantec Corp.'s Norton products will have a new tool to help them avoid unpatched software flaws.

Called the Symantec Online Network for Advanced Response (SONAR), the new security software will look at the behavior of programs running on the computer in order to decide whether they are malicious. This is a departure from Symantec's traditional signature-based antivirus protection techniques, which compare the program's code to a database of known malware.

SONAR will be a free add-on to Symantec's Norton AntiVirus 2007 and Norton Internet Security 2007 products, said Ed Kim, director of product management with Symantec's consumer business unit.

"We're very excited about the release of SONAR," Kim said. "It's zero-day protection that doesn't rely on threat signatures."