Norton 360 Antivirus Set to Launch Ethereum-Mining Platform & Wallet

Mining Ethereum (ETH) is said to be getting safer in the coming weeks as NortonLifeLock, the cybersecurity company behind popular antivirus software Norton 360, announced a new feature which will enable the platform users to mine ether.

A new product titled Norton Crypto promises to deliver a new way for everyone to mine Ethereum. It will come together will Norton Crypto Wallet that will be stored in the cloud as a protection against hard drive failure, the company said.

Norton Crypto product is expected to become available to all Norton 360 customers in the coming weeks. Select customers in the early adopter program start being invited today. Either way, the customers may require “certain PC hardware” to use this service, said the company.

Norton argued that many miners often have to take risks in order to earn crypto, including but not limited to disabling their computer security and allow running unvetted code on their machines that could be “skimming from their earnings or even planting ransomware.”

Besides, the earnings from mining activities are often stored on hard drives, where digital wallets may be easily compromised or lost due to hardware failure.

“As the crypto economy continues to become a more important part of our customers‘ lives, we want to empower them to mine cryptocurrency with Norton,” said Vincent Pilette, CEO of NortonLifeLock, adding that this is a way to expand their Cyber Safety platform “to protect our customers’ ever-evolving digital lives.”

Gagan Singh, chief product officer at NortonLifeLock, suggested that the product may further crypto adoption. He said that Norton Crypto will enable users to mine crypto with a few clicks, “avoiding many barriers to entry in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.”

Even though the press release focuses on Ethereum, the company told CNN that it will be considering adding other reputable cryptoassets in the future. It specified that further assets will be selected according to the users' “ability to get the highest reward for their computing capacity.”

Also, Norton Crypto will reportedly not be free, as the company reportedly plans on charging a coin mining fee from each participant, per PC Mag.

The company did not comment on the fact that Ethereum is currently in the process of moving away from graphics processing unit (GPU)-intensive mining towards Proof-of-Stake based ETH 2.0.