Panda Cloud Antivirus Emerges From Beta

Panda Cloud Antivirus UI

I reported on Panda Cloud Antivirus back in June and July in my posts, Panda’s Cloud Antivirus (Beta) is a Winner! and Panda’s CloudAntivirus Update.

I tested Panda Cloud Antivirus extensively on my systems while it was in beta and only recently switched to Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) for evaluation. Today, I’ll switch back to Panda on my older, slower system to compare performance of each one. I have noticed a slight performance degradation with MSE that was all but non-existent with Panda. Now that Panda Cloud Antivirus is out of beta, I can make a fair comparison which I will report on later. In the meantime, here’s some info from Panda’s press release I received this morning

Panda Cloud Antivirus, the industry’s first and most comprehensive free cloud-based anti-virus that protects consumers PCs against the latest malware, spyware, rootkits and viruses, today emerged from beta after six months of user testing. To experience the expanded performance and support capabilities of Cloud Antivirus, as well as benefit from both online and offline security protection, consumers can download the free service from Panda Security at http://www.cloudantivirus.com.

Recognized for being “the first anti-virus without an update button”, Panda Cloud Antivirus delivers the fastest protection against the newest and most dangerous viruses. This is made possible thanks to Collective Intelligence, Panda’s advanced system that gathers malware information from its global community of users in the cloud to automatically identify and classify new malware strains in minutes. Collective Intelligence combines local detection technologies with real-time cloud-scanning to maximize protection while minimizing resource consumption. Available in 11 languages, Panda Cloud Antivirus works under Windows XP (32 bits), Windows Vista (32bits and 64bits) and Windows 7 (32bits and 64bits) operating systems and only consumes 20 MB of RAM.

It’s an interesting technology and one that I think we’ll see more of in the future. As more users join the collective, the application gets even more sensitive to new malware strains. A PC World review found Cloud Antivirus impressive:

“Among all of the free anti-virus software we tested for our latest roundup, Panda Cloud Antivirus was the best app at blocking known malware. The approach is intended to take advantage of the latest signatures without the need for signature-database updates–and if its excellent showing at detecting malware in AV-Test.org’s zoo of half a million samples is any indication, the approach works. Panda’s app produced an impressive 99.4 percent overall detection rate.”

Let me know if you try it and how you like it.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a Game Changer

Microsoft’s Security Essentials (MSE), released last week amidst criticism from antivirus giant Symantec, is proving to be effective, robust protection against current malware threats. Performance analysis by av-test.org shows that MSE is on par with many other standalone antivirus products.

Using Windows XP as a testbed, AV-Test pitted MSE against 545,000 current computer worms, viruses, backdoors, bots and Trojan horses; MSE detected more than 98 percent. It detected just over 90 percent of adware and spyware samples and excelled at detecting and removing rootkits.

My experience with MSE so far mirrors the company’s claims that the program “…runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.”

Any way you look at it, MSE is a game changer. While it’s currently only available as a downloadable add-on to Windows, I doubt it will be long before it comes bundled with the OS on new PCs. When that happens, the AV giants are going to find themselves hard pressed to come up with legitimate reasons for someone to purchase their products.

Microsoft Security Essentials Goes Live

Microsoft Security Essentials is now out of beta and ready for download.

The Microsoft Security Essentials team has this to say:

Microsoft Security Essentials (formerly codenamed “Morro”) is the newest security product from Microsoft that helps protect consumers against viruses, spyware and other malicious software. The program, using the same technology as the Forefront product family, is designed to protect and take the guess work out of you wondering if you are protected or not.

If you’re green, you’re good.

Red or yellow means there is something that needs to be done to keep your PC secure. A single click and the PC is back to the green protected state.

Microsoft Security Essentials is also designed to address cost and other barriers that have prevented many of our customers from running up-to-date security protection on their PCs. Because there are no subscription fees, there is no registration required to collect billing or other personal information.

It also runs quietly in the background scheduling scans when the PC is most likely idle and interrupting the user only when there is an action required to keep their PC secure. It employs practices like active memory swapping and CPU throttling to limit the impact on your PC performance, even on older or less powerful PCs.

Sounds good to me. I’m going to recommend it to some of my less-than-savvy clients and see how it works for them. I’ll even try it myself, though I’m not a good candidate for such a thing, being the security Geek that I am. Still, it can’t hurt. The one thing that’s unclear: Is this going to come standard with every new PC, or does everyone have to make the effort to download and install it?

Stay tuned.

Good PC Security Begins With a Baseline

I received some good feedback on my “14 Golden Rules of Computer Security” list, in particular, this comment from Michael: “…you encourage people to go through all the effort of running Virtual Machines to protect themselves from malware, but you don’t actually encourage them to run Anti-Virus software. Which basically, unfortunately, means you’re violating rule #1 and much more likely to run into rule #12.” This lead to a review of past articles I’ve posted on the subject and my finding that though I’ve covered all of the bases, my writing is a bit fragmented. So, you can go back to “Nine Steps to System Security – 2008", “The Lazy Man’s Way to System Security”, and “14 Golden Rules of Computer Security” and put them all together for a complete PC security package, but that’s a lot for the average user to digest.

As of today, I’m embarking on a major pre-release revision of the eBook, 14 Golden Rules of Computer Security to make sure all of the bases are covered in a logical combination and sequence. In essence, the book will begin with the concept of a security baseline—the bare security essentials—for a normal home PC setup and will branch from there.

What’s a good PC security baseline? In “The Lazy Man’s Way to System Security,” I proposed these four bare security essentials: “…a NAT router; a good antivirus program; a good anti-malware program; and, a good software firewall.” That was good enough at the time, but these days antivirus, antimalware and a software firewall are usually combined into a single suite. I choose to align with Windows Secrets’  Security Baseline page: “…a hardware firewall that’s built into your [NAT] router, security software that guards against all types of malware threats, a software-update service to ensure that your applications are patched against the latest exploits, and a secure browser.”

There are many possibilities for implementing those four basic items and that will be well covered in the book.

Convert Any Live CD to a Bootable Thumb Drive in Minutes

A visitor to my Ask the Geek site told me about a great little utility, UNetbootin for Windows and Linux that allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions without requiring you to burn a CD. Not only that, but UNetbootin can be used to load system utilities, including:

• Parted Magic, a partition manager that can resize, repair, backup, and restore partitions.
• SystemRescueCD, a system repair, backup and recovery tool.
• Super Grub Disk, a boot utility that can restore and repair overwritten and mis-configured GRUB installs or directly boot various operating systems
• Dr.Web Antivirus, F-Secure Rescue CD, and Kaspersky Rescue Disk, which remove malware from Windows installs.
• Backtrack, a utility used for network analysis and penetration testing.
• Ophcrack, a utility which can recover Windows passwords.
• NTPasswd, a utility which can reset Windows passwords and edit the registry.
• Gujin, a graphical bootloader that can also be used to boot various operating systems and media.
• Smart Boot Manager (SBM), which can boot off CD-ROM and floppy drives on computers with a faulty BIOS.
• FreeDOS, which can run BIOS flash and other legacy DOS utilities.

The tool works like a charm. I’ve made bootable USB drives with ClamAV Live CD, the Kaspersky Rescue Disk, Dr. Web Antivirus, and a couple of others, just to see how it works. These are invaluable tools for we security wonks and I thought I’d pass it on.

Be sure to check out the UNetbootin site for complete information and tutorials on how to make it work.

Panda’s CloudAntivirus Update

When I turned on my laptop this morning, I was greeted with a red X on the Panda icon in my system tray. When I clicked on it, the program informed me that my beta version would expire in 10 days and I should download the latest release. I was ready for a sales pitch; I’m happy to say there wasn’t one. Apparently, CloudAntivirus is still free (it’s also still Beta) and will remain so.

The latest release is dated 6/30/2009, Version 0.08.82. That number seems far removed from V. 1.0. I can’t imagine what more the program needs—it works very well now with no intrusive behavior. I’ve tested it with some real malware and it works as advertised. I trust it enough to recommend it to everyone I know.

If you missed my previous article on this nifty security tool, read Panda’s Cloud Antivirus (Beta) is a Winner! Be sure to watch the video I have linked in that article, too. Besides just being cool, the video will give you a new viewpoint on emerging security technology in the Cloud. While you’re at it, this Panda Security video ad’s also worth a look. (Check out the threat characters—very catchy.): Viruses pwned by Panda Antivirus [HQ].

Anyone interested in seeing a security video of the week (or month) column on this blog?

Panda’s Cloud Antivirus (Beta) is a Winner!

I’ve been using Panda Security’s free Cloud Antivirus for awhile and I must say I’m impressed. It’s there, but you’ll never know it unless you look (the little panda icon in the system tray). I rarely get malware of any kind, but Cloud AV has caught a couple of things that were probably drive-bys. It’s so transparent that I actually had to go check on it before I noticed that malware had been caught. This is a perfect set-it-and-forget-it AV for the regular user. It’s free, self-updating and doesn’t require any decisions on the part of the user. You can believe what they have to say:

It’s Not Your Fault

I’m going to take a lot of heat for this post. Maybe. Unless I’m right (which I usually am). So, let me just get it out of the way: The state of security on the Internet today is NOT YOUR FAULT. Neither is it the fault of the clueless surfers who click on any and every link in their email and say “yes” to every popup on their screen. It’s not the fault of those who love to install the “little bitty kitty” screensavers that are loaded with adware and the ones who use the “fun web products” emoticons and stationery with similar bent. No, it’s not your fault.

It’s M….no, it’s U….no, it’s…hell,  it’s the software developers who don’t have a clue on how to write a secure application. The end user—be she a geek or a regular consumer user—has no way of knowing that there are security holes on the software she uses. And she shouldn’t have to be concerned about it, now, should she? NO.

The more I have to deal with the malicious–and sometimes just crappy–stuff that people manage to get on their systems, the more I want to grab the programmers, web app developers, and insecure software purveyors by the throat. Conspiracy theorists speculate that since the anti-malware software industry is a multi-billion dollar cash cow, we don’t have a chance of ever seeing truly secure software. I don’t think that’s true. There’s enough crap out there to keep the anti-malware industry busy for a long time.

But it does make one wonder, doesn’t it?

Conficker’s raison d’etre? Profit, of Course

More than a week after Conficker’s much-hyped April 1st activation date, the botnet has come to life and is using a P2P communication system to update itself on what is believed to be millions of infected PCs. Along with the update, the worm is downloading scareware known as SpywareProtect2009, according to Alex Gostev of Kaspersky Lab:

One of the files is a rogue anti-virus app, which we detect as FraudTool.Win32.SpywareProtect2009.s. The first version of Kido (Conficker), detected back in November 2008, also downloaded fake antivirus to the infected machine. And once again, six months later, we’ve got unknown cybercriminals using the same trick.

As is typical with scareware, once SpywareProtect2009 is downloaded, the victim will start seeing the usual popup warning messages asking if they want to “clean and protect” their PC (see screen shot below). Of course, this will cost them $49.95. The criminals will no doubt make millions on these fees alone while amassing a huge database of valid credit card numbers that will likely be sold for additional profit.

Threatpost.com has posted an excellent FAQ and also provides a disinfection tool called KKiller for download.

Scareware – Yes, People Do Fall for the Ruse

What happens when people fall for the scareware ruse and actually install the stuff? Oddly enough, they may not even know they’ve been duped. Their systems may run a little slower, but they may be fooled into thinking they’re now being protected by the malware they’ve installed. What follows is a real-life example of someone who wrote in to a well-known security forum. (So as not to cause embarrassment to the victim, I have changed names and details.)

Question one, [Miss K] is very upset that Microsoft uninstalled her new antivirus program.  [Gentlemen], she writes, “I turned on my computer a few days ago, and I got a message saying that Microsoft MSRT had removed AV 2009 from my computer.  So now I don’t have an antivirus installed.  I tried to download another copy of AV 2009, but I couldn’t remember where I got it.  Can you tell me…” [the gentleman reading this question actually thinks it’s a joke] “Can you tell me where to find it, or recommend a free AV program?”

Here is some of the conversation between the hosts:

Host1:  And a lot of people have been getting it.  And MSRT has been removing it from a lot of machines.  So in case [Miss K] is serious, we’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing with you.

Host2:  Yes, because you’re not alone.  There are many, many, many people who’ve fallen for this.  I get - literally I get this call on the radio show all the time.

Host1:  Yes.  Yes.  So do not go looking for another copy of it.  Actually it’ll probably find you, without you having to look for it, and happily crawl into your computer.  It is malicious.  It’s good that Microsoft MSRT removed it.