In this digital age, scams and scammers abound and it amazes me how these scammers keep coming up with new and innovative ways to cheat innocent victims out of their hard-earned money or trick them into giving up sensitive information.
In what I consider a great move to help deal with these scammers, long-standing security company Norton is providing a new free service called “Norton Genie”. Norton Genie will analyze suspicious email and messages and alert the user if a scam is identified.
Norton Genie is available via a website and apps are available for both iOS and Android devices. It’s important to note that Norton Genie is AI-driven and, at this stage, still in learning mode, so has not yet been perfected. Also, apps are currently available only in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
How To Use Norton Genie
“Think your texts, emails, or social media messages are scams? Are the websites you’re visiting risky? Just ask Norton Genie and you’ll know instantly—your wish is our command!”
I’ll only be explaining the website service but the apps work in much the same way.
- First off, you need to take a screenshot or photo of the suspect message and upload that when prompted. Alternatively, you can copy and paste the text:
- Click the Begin scan button and Genie will analyze the text
- After its analysis, Genie will let you know if it finds the message legitimate, malicious, or just suspicious
- Chat with Genie: return to the main page from the summary. Here, Genie now offers a chat feature in which you can ask any questions or share any concerns
- In case you missed it earlier, here is a link to the Norton Genie website
BOTTOM LINE:
I really like and appreciate this new service from Norton, I think it’s a brilliant concept and one that could save a lot of folks from becoming victims, especially mobile device users. My one concern is that the people who are most vulnerable are also the least likely to hear about and use Norton Genie. So, if you know of any vulnerable folk among your circle of family and friends, please spread the word.
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Just letting you know, i tried this, i yanked one of those nigerian scam letters out of gmail spam. Norton could not tell if it was scam. Apparently gmail is better at detecting spam /scam.
Hmmm, strange. I tested Norton Genie with two scam text messages and one scam email and it flagged all three correctly.
It’s a great idea Jim but having used Norton products since the days Peter Norton used to be actually pictured on the box, the glass-half-empty Reg wonders if once we’ve all helped Norton train the Ai whether it will end up becoming a paid-for feature in the already-confusing Norton product stable !
The glass-half-full Reg hopes they at least will keep a free online version. However, as you also rightly noted, those that need it most, the elderly and the less IT-aware probably won’t either know about it, be able to use it or remember to use it. Hopefullly in future this sort of thing will have the potential to be built into the O/S to cover all email and browsing software being used as an automatic warning system – although of course I am sure scammers will find their way around that too. Just this week I noticed GMail has suddenly failed to capture several very obvious scam emails that were able to make their way to my Outlook inbox.
I’ve watched many of those scam-baiter call-centre videos online and whilst they are certainly entertaining, for every laugh I get there is the sad realisation just how many elderly are getting fleeced by these callous parasites and the heartbreak of them making money so easily from the misfortune of the vulnerable by their theft of significant and even life-savings.
Thanks again !
Reg