Symantec adds deep learning to anti-malware tools

The company has been working to integrate the whole idea of machine learning into its security services since February 2015. Symantec asserts that the capability, as new as it is, may be the next critical technology to keep cyber-attacks at bay.

Gardner said that most of the malware files in the Android environment are known, but at any given time 2 to 5 of the malware in circulation represent what he called low-scoring threats that are often missed by malware scanners. These include zero-day attacks.

However, Gardner noted that because of the seriousness of a malware attack, the customers simply cannot afford any kind of attack, which made preventing zero-day attacks critical. Because machine learning pres¬¬ents the possibility of a very strong defense against zero-day malware attacks, Symantec started there.