Symantec has announced its NxG security technology Ubiquity that is built on community-based reputation, for fighting evolving malware.

The new security software uses the collective intelligence of more than 100 million computer systems – Symantec’s participating customers – and the data from Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network to derive an accurate safety rating for single software files.

The company said that its new security technology derives a security rating for each file, based on information about the context of the file – where it came from, how old it is and its adoption patterns across Symantec’s user population – in addition to other proprietary calculations.

Ubiquity reduces the impact of antivirus scanning by 90% by scanning only those files it has identified as risky.

Symantec said that the data provided by Ubiquity can be used to enable administrators to control what software enters their users’ environments based on file polices that factor in file safety ratings, prevalence data and discovery dates.

Following its deployment in the Norton 2011 consumer security products and more recently in Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection, the company is readying Ubiquity for rollout across a range of enterprise products over the coming year, starting with Web Gateway.