Ever wanted to mine cryptocurrency through your antivirus software? Well, soon you can.
On Wednesday, NortonLifeLock—formerly known as Symantec—announced it’s adding an Ethereum mining function to its paid antivirus product, Norton 360.
The upcoming feature may seem out of place, but according to NortonLifeLock, it serves a security purpose. The company says that many users will download “unvetted” crypto-mining programs to their PCs in their quest to cash in on the virtual currencies. However, the same programs can contain malware, or be rigged to secretly skim earnings.
In response, the company developed Norton Crypto, which is designed to let customers securely mine Ethereum using software from a trusted brand.
“Once cryptocurrency has been earned, customers can track and transfer earnings into their Norton Crypto Wallet, which is stored in the cloud so it cannot be lost due to hard drive failure,” the company added.
A screenshot of Norton Crypto shows the software leverages a PC’s graphics card to mine the Ethereum cryptocurrency. However, it remains unclear if the feature will be free, or if Norton plans to take a cut from the payouts. Whether users can transfer the mined Ethereum to another wallet is also unknown.
The other issue is how the Ethereum community is working to phase out GPU-intensive mining in the coming months. So the feature may be short-lived, although Norton could migrate the mining to another cryptocurrency.
In the meantime, the company will begin inviting select Norton 360 customers to try out the feature on Thursday through an early adopter program, before making it available to all Norton 360 customers in the coming weeks.
