NortonLifeLock, the company formerly known as Symantec, has opened up a crypto can of worms a new product feature that allows users to dedicate spare graphics-chip cycles to mine the Ethereum digital currency.
While cryptocurrency proponents lauded the new feature, announced last week, many security professionals and environmentally concerned critics questioned why a security company would add a feature that consumes massive amounts of energy and supports the speculative digital payment system that has become the de facto mechanism to collect profits from cybercrime.
For its part, NortonLifeLock positioned the offering as "a secure, reliable way for consumers to mine for Ether without opening themselves and their devices up to these pitfalls [cyberattacks]."
Starting out, the company will offer customers in its early adopter program the option of mining the Etherium cryptocurrency, but plans to expand the feature to all customers and more cryptocurrencies, said Gagan Singh, NortonLifeLock's chief product officer, in an e-mail interview.
"Cryptomining is taking on a bigger part of consumers' digital lives, so we took the steps to ensure they have a safe and easy way to mine crypto," he said. "There is a lot of innovation happening in the crypto-economy that we continue to monitor."
Cryptocurrency proponents supported the move, with crypto-information site Cointelegraph positioning the feature as "privacy-centric tech is finally adapting to crypto." Yet some security professionals scratched their collective heads.
Bruce Schneier, a noted cryptographer, author, and fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, questioned why a security com ..
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