A single NIS 2008 purchase includes three licenses for the modern multicomputer home. New in this version, the Network Map identifies all the computers and other devices that it can "see" in the network and flags those that have NIS 2008 installed. By going through a fairly elaborate "discovery" procedure, you can configure the suite to allow the NIS 2008 systems to remotely monitor each other. The only information you get is the main status icon, though. I wish it would offer a little more detail. Whether it's a big problem, such as no firewall active, or a small problem, like Windows Updates not set to automatic, all you see is a simple red X icon. In any case, there's no option to remotely fix the problem.
The network map does have a few other tricks. By default, other computers on your local network are assigned the Default "trust level," which means file and printer sharing is allowed but other network traffic will be limited by the firewall. Change the trust level to Restricted and you block all access to your PC from the specified device. You can also choose Full Trust, which allows all network traffic except for known attacks and infections. However, Symantec advises against using this mode unless the default mode causes connection problems.
NIS 2008 can distinguish wired from wireless networking, and it can tell when your wireless network has encryption enabled. If you're so devil-may-care as to omit encryption, the suite warns you that your network isn't secure. It doesn't, however, report new computers on the network as possible intruders, as Panda Internet Security 2008 does. And on my wired/wireless office network it never did detect that my wireless notebook had joined the network. I do like the network map, but I think it has some growing to do.
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