Every day you almost certainly get sketchy advertisements, scammy texts, phishing emails, and even fraudulent voicemails. Some of them can be pretty convincing; it’s not always easy to tell. That’s where Norton Genie comes in. If you’re dubious about an ad, text, or web page, just send it to Norton Genie for analysis. The app doesn’t simply give a thumbs up or down—it explains its findings and even lets you ask questions to dig in further.
Norton Genie is currently in early access. Anyone can download it from the Apple App Store for iPhone or iPad or log into the web-based version online. An Android version is planned. The app uses AI to distinguish scams from legitimate communication, and it's still learning. Interaction with early adopters serves to train the service and improve its accuracy, but it's doing well even at this early stage.
There are very few apps that focus on scams and phishing the way Norton Genie does. Pixm Anti-Phishing is one such, but in our testing it proved ineffective. SlashNext Mobile Security, as the name suggests, is strictly for mobile devices. It worked well in testing, but it’s expensive for what it does. As Norton Genie is both free and effective, it’s the better choice.
Why Use Norton Genie?
In an introductory meeting, a Norton representative explained that the average American encounters 25 scams every week. That seems about right to me. Every day sees 3.4 billion scam emails and 1.6 billion scam texts. With all those scams in play, somebody is going to bite. Norton Genie aims to ensure that somebody isn’t you.
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As noted, this early release is still learning its trade, and it doesn't yet support Android. There’s also a push to expand into other countries, both by working in other languages and by adapting to each country’s popular scams. There’s no firm date for building out the project, but my contact said it should be by the end of the year.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
Right now, Norton Genie processes scams in the form of screenshots or text. The Norton rep noted that an early aim of the project was to let you point it at just about anything and determine whether it’s safe. “Has this food gone bad? Is it safe to eat?” he quipped.
Hands On With Norton Genie
After I installed Norton Genie and launched the app, it asked for my name, for conversational purposes. With that step finished, it messaged, “Hello, Neil. If you’re worried about a scam, I’m here to help.” After I used it a bit, it displayed recently processed screenshots and texts.
To use the iPhone app, you snap a screenshot of a suspect message or web page, or copy a suspect text or URL to the clipboard. At this point, I ran into a problem—I didn’t have any scammy messages on hand. I hit on the idea of using the phone’s transcription of voicemail scams, which worked fine.
Norton Genie processed the screenshot through a series of tests, keeping me apprised of its progress with notes like “Extracting text,” “Checking URL links,” and “Checking scam tactics.” All the while, a somewhat hypnotic bubble lens moved and squiggled in front of the screenshot.
After finishing its analysis, Norton Genie offered a verdict such as “It looks suspicious” or “Not sure.” I'm told it can also report “It’s a scam,” but I didn’t manage to trigger that response.
Some users will stop here. If it’s a scam or if it’s suspicious, delete it and move on. More curious users can click to learn just what aspects of the message resulted in the app’s verdict. I'm particularly impressed with this facet of the program. For example, it doesn't merely note that a scam seems to be offering free money, it clips out and shows the precise elements of the page that trigger this observation. In examining these details, you can learn to better detect scams yourself.
You can interact with Norton Genie somewhat as would you chat with a generative AI like ChatGPT or Bing AI. But don’t expect it to tell you jokes or write haiku for you. This bot strictly talks about scams. See the images above for examples of the types of interactions you can expect.
The Genie Handles Text Scams, Too
You can screenshot any kind of communication and ask Norton Genie to analyze it. WhatsApp, email, or social media, it doesn’t matter. But if the communication is a simple text, you can also just copy/paste the words into Norton Genie for analysis.
I tried it with what I’m pretty sure is a legitimate (but sketchy-looking) pitch from a phone carrier. Norton Genie reported itself not sure, and offered to dig a bit more, which I found interesting. On performing further analysis, it still couldn’t say one way or the other. It advised not engaging with the message, just in case, advice I found acceptable.
Phenomenal Phishing Protection
When I initially evaluated this product, I was laboring under the misapprehension that its web-based edition hadn't been released. My Norton contacts straightened out that confusion. Anybody can try Norton Genie by connecting to genie.norton.com.
With web-based access accomplished, I ran my standard phishing protection test. After all, this is a scam-busting tool, and phishing frauds are probably the most common scam. For this test, I scrape hundreds of recent phishing pages (and suspected phishing pages). For a sanity check, I launch each in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, relying on each browser’s built-in phishing detection. If the page doesn’t load in any of the browsers, I discard it. If it isn’t truly a phishing scam, even if it’s some other kind of scam, I discard it.
Most third-party phishing protection comes in the form of a browser extension that steers the browser away from frauds. In the case of Norton Genie, I manually submitted each suspect URL for analysis directly.
Note that Norton Genie only detects a scam when you get a whiff of suspicion and proactively request its advice. If a super-convincing fraudulent page doesn’t tingle your Spidey sense, Genie can’t jump in to help.
As in the iOS app, Norton Genie’s analysis stepped through several phases. I observed that most of the time it hit the “Checking URL links” phase and immediately identified the link as fraudulent. Occasionally it went through the “Checking scam tactics” and “Checking other red flags” phases. In these cases, it sometimes identified the link as malicious advertising rather than phishing, but I gave it credit either way.
This early access edition only promises to find English-language scams. However, I observed it detecting frauds in Arabic, Chinese, French, and Japanese. It seems clear to me that in most cases Norton Genie simply found the link on a blacklist, but occasionally needed to perform a full analysis. One way or another, it caught 100% of the verified phishing frauds, beating out the phishing protection built into Norton 360 Deluxe, which scores 96% in its latest test.
Avast One Essential, Guardio, Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security, and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security also scored 100% in their own most recent tests. Note that these four automatically steered the browser away from fraudulent sites, while I had to actively query Norton Genie about each.
Chatting With Norton Genie
I mentioned that Norton Genie functions as a task-focused chatbot. I found interacting with it much easier on the full-sized browser window than on the iPhone I used for testing. Even so, I couldn’t divert it into chatting outside its sphere of knowledge. When I asked it an off-the-wall question, it responded, “That’s a great question! Unfortunately, I’m the wrong genie to help you with that.”
More useful are the predefined questions that appear as options after Genie discovers a scam. When it finds and reports a scam, you can click “Ease my mind.” or “Anything else I should do?”
Choosing the latter simply displays a list of common-sense advice regarding the scam. Don’t interact with the message. Delete it from your email. Block the sender so they can’t send more scam messages. That sort of thing.
When you ask the Genie to ease your mind, it starts asking you questions. Did you click the link? Did it ask for personal information? Are you using multi-factor authentication? It then goes on to offer relevant advice based on your responses.
I like where Norton is going with this. With AI becoming more and more prevalent, a chat-style interface seems like a smart way to convey information about scams and security. I do hope that it learns from its interactions during this early access period and thereby becomes more flexible.
Spam Can Be a Scam
Looking for further ways to test Norton Genie, I realized that I have a ready-made collection of scams in my work email’s Junk folder. I’ve had this email address for decades, almost for as long as email has been generally available, so it gets a lot of spam. For testing purposes, I selected a dozen or so especially scammy messages and ran them through Norton Genie, using the option to paste in the message content as text. The app didn’t handle these nearly as well as it did the phishing frauds.
It did correctly identity several instances of what it called an advanced fee scam. You’ve probably seen these. Someone wants your help moving a million dollars into a US bank, and you can have half, if only you first set up the account with $1,000. Or some similar sketchy request.
But for more than half the messages, it reported itself unsure. Among the possible responses was the option, “Dig a little more, please.” Norton Genie warned that by doing so, it would have to visit suspect links, and the scammer would know that it did so. I had it forge ahead. In every case but one, it came back apologizing that it still couldn’t decide.
In addition, some messages just seemed to choke the Genie’s analysis. It popped up an error message and offered to “have another go.” But over and over, these messages triggered that error. In other cases, the elements of Genie’s display became displaced such that the Start Again button couldn’t be seen. I had to exit the app and launch it again when that happened.
Give Norton Genie a Try
Norton Genie is free and it’s worth a try. In this early access phase, it’s still learning to do its job, and you're out of luck if you're on an Android, for now. But it already has a keen nose for rooting out phishing scams. You can learn useful tips in its chatbot mode, and if its analysis draws a blank, well, you didn’t pay for that advice. Going forward you can expect its coverage to extend to Android, and to languages (and scams) of other countries. We'll update this review accordingly as the service expands and evolves.
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