Unlimited Online Storage Defined
The pitch - *UNLIMITED storage. The asterisk - *Subject to fair use policy. The details - "In the event you chose an unlimited storage option for the bbb Paid Services, your usage of the Services if in excess of 500GB may at bbb’s sole discretion be subject to additional usage fees, as referenced in f) above and in this paragraph". Unlimited, and fair use, appears to be 500GB. As a reference point, 500GB is the hard drive size of a number of laptops. Online storage service providers such as Box.net, dropbox, carbonite, livkive, mozy, and sugarsync must be pleased that that has been cleared up. Note, each vendor has their own plans with various storage amounts. Next week – infinite and pi brought to closure.
Black Hat USA 2011
The Black Hat conference runs in Las Vegas August 1 through 4 at Caesars Palace. Potential blogs may be published during the event. Over 5000 attendees will hear a number of speakers. There are nine training tracks. Over 80 vendors will be part of the tradeshow. Sponsors include internet security providers Norman, Symantec, McAfee, and GFI. Qualys is the diamond sponsor. https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/bh-us-11-sponsors.html There may be some IPO (initial public offering) candidates in there.
About Black Hat
The Black Hat Briefings remains the biggest and the most important technical security conference series in the world by remaining true to our core value: serving the information security community by delivering timely, actionable security information in a friendly, vendor-neutral environment.
https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/bh-us-11-home.html
Pwnie Awards
The Pwnie Awards is an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements and failures of security researchers and the security community. The awards are given out once a year. The fifth annual ceremony will take place on August 3rd, during Black Hat USA. http://pwnies.com/about/
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Sophos Endpoint Security and Control 10 – Sophos Beta
Sophos currently has their Sophos Endpoint Security and Control 10 offering in beta. Improvements in the product they’re promoting include:
Sophos Endpoint Security Endpoint and Control
• New technologies that will improve scanning performance and web-based malware detection rates. Provide the ability to filter inappropriate websites whether your users are on or off your network
• Boost performance, which results in faster boot-up scanning and improved malware detection accuracy
• Enhance web-based malware protection with browser independent scanning
• Identify computers missing patches for vulnerabilities being exploited by the latest threats
How Has Sophos Been Performing in Tests
They are 9/10 in the last Virus Bulletin VB100 Awards tests they have been participating g in http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=1
Scored just below 90% in Reactive Detection and about 80% for Proactive Detection in Virus Bulletin’s December 2010 – June 2011 RAP Test http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
Was certified in Q1 2011 on Windows 7 by AV-test.org http://www.av-test.org/certifications
Received an Advanced Rating (2 stars) in AV-comparatives.org On-demand Detection of Malicious Software in February http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_feb2011.pdf . This was out of 3 stars. They were not at the top among the two star recipients.
For more information or to download the beta, go to http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/beta.aspx
Sophos is a B2B focused company, though they do offer a free download for Mac products. They’ve invested internally in “the cloud” offering solutions for live antivirus, URL filtering, and spam filtering technologies.
Early in July, Sophos completed their acquisition of Astaro, which has allowed them to broaden their internet security portfolio and buy some market share. http://www.sophos.com/en-us/press-office/press-releases/2011/07/sophos-broadens-security-portfolio-with-completion-of-astaro-acquisition.aspx
Sophos had sold a majority stake of the company to Apax Partners for $830 million last year http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-year-of-security-acquisitions.html Funds like this can help finance a lot of purchases. If you’re not going IPO (initial public offering), this is another way to get cash.
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months
Also in Beta (Consumer Products)
• Webroot has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Sophos Endpoint Security Endpoint and Control
• New technologies that will improve scanning performance and web-based malware detection rates. Provide the ability to filter inappropriate websites whether your users are on or off your network
• Boost performance, which results in faster boot-up scanning and improved malware detection accuracy
• Enhance web-based malware protection with browser independent scanning
• Identify computers missing patches for vulnerabilities being exploited by the latest threats
How Has Sophos Been Performing in Tests
They are 9/10 in the last Virus Bulletin VB100 Awards tests they have been participating g in http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=1
Scored just below 90% in Reactive Detection and about 80% for Proactive Detection in Virus Bulletin’s December 2010 – June 2011 RAP Test http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/rap-index.xml
Was certified in Q1 2011 on Windows 7 by AV-test.org http://www.av-test.org/certifications
Received an Advanced Rating (2 stars) in AV-comparatives.org On-demand Detection of Malicious Software in February http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_feb2011.pdf . This was out of 3 stars. They were not at the top among the two star recipients.
For more information or to download the beta, go to http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/beta.aspx
Sophos is a B2B focused company, though they do offer a free download for Mac products. They’ve invested internally in “the cloud” offering solutions for live antivirus, URL filtering, and spam filtering technologies.
Early in July, Sophos completed their acquisition of Astaro, which has allowed them to broaden their internet security portfolio and buy some market share. http://www.sophos.com/en-us/press-office/press-releases/2011/07/sophos-broadens-security-portfolio-with-completion-of-astaro-acquisition.aspx
Sophos had sold a majority stake of the company to Apax Partners for $830 million last year http://kensek.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-year-of-security-acquisitions.html Funds like this can help finance a lot of purchases. If you’re not going IPO (initial public offering), this is another way to get cash.
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months
Also in Beta (Consumer Products)
• Webroot has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Security Executive(s) Say Every Security Company is Misleading Consumers about Protection Offered, (Seven Years Apart)
In a July 15 ITPro article, M86 Chief Executive Officer John Vigouroux stated that every other security company bar his is misleading consumers about the malware protection they offer. "The security industry has done a miserable job of defending the world against malware," Vigouroux said, claiming the best legacy systems are only stopping 40 per cent of threats. http://www.itpro.co.uk/634951/is-the-security-industry-lying-about-malware-protection
Vigouroux did not discuss in any detail the wide variety of techniques beyond pattern files being by security providers to identify and stop malware and other threats, other than for M86. Technologies beyond pattern files include heuristic analysis, sandboxing, and pushing defense to the cloud, not waiting to stop malware before it reaches the desktop. M86’s product line utilizes a variety of technologies, including URL filtering, and standard malware signatures. Vigouroux is quite vigorous in denigrating pattern files, nonetheless. M86’s “parts” through acquisition/merger are, Marshal, Avinti, 8e6, and Finjan. M86 positions themselves as delivering “Today’s Technology for Tomorrow’s Threats”.
Nonetheless, there is some truth in what Vigouroux is talking about. In Av-Comparatives.org May 2011 “Retrospective Test, Static Detection of new/unknown malicious software”, the top four results were from:
• 61% - G Data
• 59% - Eset
• 59% - Avira
• 55% - Kaspersky
This particular test evaluated only the offline heurist/generic detection of the company’s products against unknown and known malware. www.AV-comparatives.org , www.AV-test.org , www.virusbtn.org, www.icsalabs.com, and www.westcoastlabs.com are great sites to go to for information on products tests.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
Revisiting Trend Micro, March 22, 2004 – Déjà vu, All over Again
Trend Micro Executive Eva Chen had a Q&A with CRN (www.crn.com) in March 2004. Chen stated in response to a question about security management, “The other thing we are thinking about is outbreak prevention. We always say we are in the antivirus business. But I was so frustrated that I called our CEO, Steve Chang, and said we've been lying to our customers for 10 years. We call ourselves antivirus, but we have never prevented a virus from hitting our customers. None of the antivirus vendors have ever done that. From that day, we started to rethink the whole business about antivirus.” http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18841262/crn-interview-eva-chen-trend-micro.htm since 2004 has probably been one of the leaders in moving protection out to the cloud. Quite a migration from their pre 2000 positioning as “Your Internet Viruswall”.
Eva Chen gets bonus points for being prescient and raising the pattern file issue in the press seven years before Vigouroux. Obviously, the industry has evolved. Viruses and malware are just a small part of the threats. Larger companies may also find themselves targeted by Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Both companies (and numerous others) have pushed the battle out to the cloud in addition to providing other technologies to provide a multi layer solution. A number of vendors are also offering security as a service, though the acronym SecaaS has not quite caught on, yet.
Trend Micro positions themselves as “Securing Your Journey to the Cloud”. From a traditional AV/Malware security provider perspective, they are in 3rd after Symantec and Intel subsidiary McAfee. Kaspersky is going after them for the 3rd position.
Virtualization as an Option
This is a topic for another blog. However, virtual desktops are being utilized by some larger organizations. MokaFive (www.mokafive.com), for example, promotes providing seven layers of security for their virtual desktops. These layers are:
• Built-in anti-virus scanning (AVG Technologies)
• Virtual desktop encapsulation to keep the virtual desktop completely independent of the host computer.
• AES 256 encryption to keep data secure
• Tamper resistance and copy protection to keep the virtual desktop from being moved or edited.
• AD and two-factor RSA SecurID authentication to allow access to only authorized users.
• Granular security policies
• Remote revoke or kill
Vigouroux did not discuss in any detail the wide variety of techniques beyond pattern files being by security providers to identify and stop malware and other threats, other than for M86. Technologies beyond pattern files include heuristic analysis, sandboxing, and pushing defense to the cloud, not waiting to stop malware before it reaches the desktop. M86’s product line utilizes a variety of technologies, including URL filtering, and standard malware signatures. Vigouroux is quite vigorous in denigrating pattern files, nonetheless. M86’s “parts” through acquisition/merger are, Marshal, Avinti, 8e6, and Finjan. M86 positions themselves as delivering “Today’s Technology for Tomorrow’s Threats”.
Nonetheless, there is some truth in what Vigouroux is talking about. In Av-Comparatives.org May 2011 “Retrospective Test, Static Detection of new/unknown malicious software”, the top four results were from:
• 61% - G Data
• 59% - Eset
• 59% - Avira
• 55% - Kaspersky
This particular test evaluated only the offline heurist/generic detection of the company’s products against unknown and known malware. www.AV-comparatives.org , www.AV-test.org , www.virusbtn.org, www.icsalabs.com, and www.westcoastlabs.com are great sites to go to for information on products tests.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
Revisiting Trend Micro, March 22, 2004 – Déjà vu, All over Again
Trend Micro Executive Eva Chen had a Q&A with CRN (www.crn.com) in March 2004. Chen stated in response to a question about security management, “The other thing we are thinking about is outbreak prevention. We always say we are in the antivirus business. But I was so frustrated that I called our CEO, Steve Chang, and said we've been lying to our customers for 10 years. We call ourselves antivirus, but we have never prevented a virus from hitting our customers. None of the antivirus vendors have ever done that. From that day, we started to rethink the whole business about antivirus.” http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18841262/crn-interview-eva-chen-trend-micro.htm since 2004 has probably been one of the leaders in moving protection out to the cloud. Quite a migration from their pre 2000 positioning as “Your Internet Viruswall”.
Eva Chen gets bonus points for being prescient and raising the pattern file issue in the press seven years before Vigouroux. Obviously, the industry has evolved. Viruses and malware are just a small part of the threats. Larger companies may also find themselves targeted by Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Both companies (and numerous others) have pushed the battle out to the cloud in addition to providing other technologies to provide a multi layer solution. A number of vendors are also offering security as a service, though the acronym SecaaS has not quite caught on, yet.
Trend Micro positions themselves as “Securing Your Journey to the Cloud”. From a traditional AV/Malware security provider perspective, they are in 3rd after Symantec and Intel subsidiary McAfee. Kaspersky is going after them for the 3rd position.
Virtualization as an Option
This is a topic for another blog. However, virtual desktops are being utilized by some larger organizations. MokaFive (www.mokafive.com), for example, promotes providing seven layers of security for their virtual desktops. These layers are:
• Built-in anti-virus scanning (AVG Technologies)
• Virtual desktop encapsulation to keep the virtual desktop completely independent of the host computer.
• AES 256 encryption to keep data secure
• Tamper resistance and copy protection to keep the virtual desktop from being moved or edited.
• AD and two-factor RSA SecurID authentication to allow access to only authorized users.
• Granular security policies
• Remote revoke or kill
Friday, July 22, 2011
The End Is Near For Paid Antivirus On PCs
This was the premise of an interesting article by Mathew Schwarz in an Information Week article on June 23. http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/antivirus/231000191 . Eric Domage, manager of western European security research and consulting for IDC, stated, “This is a highly commoditized sector. It used to be a market, but now it's a commodity--look at what Microsoft is now doing for free."
The freemium market has worked for several vendors. Microsoft created a bit of a disruptive event when they unleashed their free Microsoft Security Essentials. Excluding trial basis programs, www.download.com has approximately 60 free antivirus downloads on their site.
Some of this may be a definition issue. Antivirus is only a small portion of “malware”. The masses use the phrases interchangeably. Antivirus vendors hope that people will migrate up to a paid antivirus product or an internet security suite.
At the same time, traditional viruses are not the problem. Most major security vendors have written though leader ship whitepapers on internet threats. They detail the most current threats and how the battle has moved out to the cloud and there is more danger from getting infected while surfing the internet.
The larger vendors, on the business side of the fence, promote a multi-layered approach that begins with the cloud and often ends at the desktop. Or increasingly, they utilize a cloud solution for their desktops, road warriors, and mobile devices.
"McAfee and Symantec have decided to escape this market," said Domage in the article. CA decided to sell much of its security portfolio to UpData partners in June http://www.crn.com/news/security/229500801/ca-to-sell-antivirus-business.htm
A new market for these vendors is mobile devices using Symbian (shrinking) and Android operating systems. This includes tablets as well as smart phones. Some of the security vendors have a free product. Others have incorporated it into other technology security solutions. Those offering a free product often market a premium version. Trend Micro, Kaspersky, AVG Technologies, F-Secure, and McAfee, for example, all offer some kind of mobile security solution. some of them free.
In the denouement, while the end may be near for paid antivirus on the desktop, threats still exist. The battlefield has moved more extensively out to the internet. Protection is still essential. It costs companies to develop solutions. They need to continue to invest and these investments have to be recouped.
Below is a non-comprehensive set of links to some vendors providing security solutions for mobile devices.
http://www.f-secure.com/en_US/products/mobile/, http://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/mobile-security, http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/personal/mobile-security-for-android/, http://home.mcafee.com/Store/ , http://www.avg.com/us-en/antivirus-for-android
The freemium market has worked for several vendors. Microsoft created a bit of a disruptive event when they unleashed their free Microsoft Security Essentials. Excluding trial basis programs, www.download.com has approximately 60 free antivirus downloads on their site.
Some of this may be a definition issue. Antivirus is only a small portion of “malware”. The masses use the phrases interchangeably. Antivirus vendors hope that people will migrate up to a paid antivirus product or an internet security suite.
At the same time, traditional viruses are not the problem. Most major security vendors have written though leader ship whitepapers on internet threats. They detail the most current threats and how the battle has moved out to the cloud and there is more danger from getting infected while surfing the internet.
The larger vendors, on the business side of the fence, promote a multi-layered approach that begins with the cloud and often ends at the desktop. Or increasingly, they utilize a cloud solution for their desktops, road warriors, and mobile devices.
"McAfee and Symantec have decided to escape this market," said Domage in the article. CA decided to sell much of its security portfolio to UpData partners in June http://www.crn.com/news/security/229500801/ca-to-sell-antivirus-business.htm
A new market for these vendors is mobile devices using Symbian (shrinking) and Android operating systems. This includes tablets as well as smart phones. Some of the security vendors have a free product. Others have incorporated it into other technology security solutions. Those offering a free product often market a premium version. Trend Micro, Kaspersky, AVG Technologies, F-Secure, and McAfee, for example, all offer some kind of mobile security solution. some of them free.
In the denouement, while the end may be near for paid antivirus on the desktop, threats still exist. The battlefield has moved more extensively out to the internet. Protection is still essential. It costs companies to develop solutions. They need to continue to invest and these investments have to be recouped.
Below is a non-comprehensive set of links to some vendors providing security solutions for mobile devices.
http://www.f-secure.com/en_US/products/mobile/, http://usa.kaspersky.com/products-services/home-computer-security/mobile-security, http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/personal/mobile-security-for-android/, http://home.mcafee.com/Store/ , http://www.avg.com/us-en/antivirus-for-android
Monday, July 18, 2011
August 8 Addendum - Where Have All the Free Antivirus Downloads Gone
August 8 – Note the comments at the end of the blog. This probably explains what is happening.
July 22 - The one week change in downloads was not not kind to any of the below vendors. Not a lot can be read into one week. Could mean vacations. Could mean that there were no major outbreaks that would cause people to download a copy, either on a first time basis, or to use because their existing product had failed. The below are in (000) for weeks ending July 15 and 22, respectively.
For the past several years, AVG Technologies has led the download battle on CNET, with weekly downloads on www.download.com on the order of 1.2 to 2.0 million. Avast has typically been second, a few hundred thousand behind AVG Technologies with Avira a poor 3rd. The sum of the latter two has typically been greater than AVG’s. Avast has blogged that the sum of a handful of downloads on other sites has given them a larger installed base. However, each firm defines what constitutes an active account differently.
For the week ending 7/16 AVG has gone below a million on www.download.com. Avast has dropped "way" below a million and now ranks 4th on the www.download.com site.
• AVG – 986k
• Avira – 261k
• Ad-Aware – 238k
• Avast – 173k
• Comodo – 89k
The above could represent (a) a major changing of the guard in “free” (b) potentially a slowdown in downloads (c) slower churn among the major vendors (d) Microsoft’s free product cannibalizing everyone (e) glitches at www.download.com
The marketing people at Avast, in particular have to be saying “Dám si jedno pivo prosím”, and not in a happy way, with the decrease in downloads. The gap in downloads between them and AVG Technologies has increased to over 800k. Ouch.
It’ll be interesting to see what Opswat’s September market share figures will show. From “June 2011 OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share” http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-2011-opswat-report-on-worldwide.html
Worldwide Market Share Leaders – Product
• Microsoft Security Essentials – 10.66% (was 3rd in March report)
• Avira Antivir Personal – 10.18% (was 2nd in March report)
• Avast Free Antivirus – 8.66% (was 1st in March report)
About OPSWAT – www.opswat.com
Founded in 2002, OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple engine scanning solutions. With both manageability and multi-scanning products, OPSWAT offers simplified and comprehensive SDKs that reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams
July 22 - The one week change in downloads was not not kind to any of the below vendors. Not a lot can be read into one week. Could mean vacations. Could mean that there were no major outbreaks that would cause people to download a copy, either on a first time basis, or to use because their existing product had failed. The below are in (000) for weeks ending July 15 and 22, respectively.
For the past several years, AVG Technologies has led the download battle on CNET, with weekly downloads on www.download.com on the order of 1.2 to 2.0 million. Avast has typically been second, a few hundred thousand behind AVG Technologies with Avira a poor 3rd. The sum of the latter two has typically been greater than AVG’s. Avast has blogged that the sum of a handful of downloads on other sites has given them a larger installed base. However, each firm defines what constitutes an active account differently.
For the week ending 7/16 AVG has gone below a million on www.download.com. Avast has dropped "way" below a million and now ranks 4th on the www.download.com site.
• AVG – 986k
• Avira – 261k
• Ad-Aware – 238k
• Avast – 173k
• Comodo – 89k
The above could represent (a) a major changing of the guard in “free” (b) potentially a slowdown in downloads (c) slower churn among the major vendors (d) Microsoft’s free product cannibalizing everyone (e) glitches at www.download.com
The marketing people at Avast, in particular have to be saying “Dám si jedno pivo prosím”, and not in a happy way, with the decrease in downloads. The gap in downloads between them and AVG Technologies has increased to over 800k. Ouch.
It’ll be interesting to see what Opswat’s September market share figures will show. From “June 2011 OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share” http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-2011-opswat-report-on-worldwide.html
Worldwide Market Share Leaders – Product
• Microsoft Security Essentials – 10.66% (was 3rd in March report)
• Avira Antivir Personal – 10.18% (was 2nd in March report)
• Avast Free Antivirus – 8.66% (was 1st in March report)
About OPSWAT – www.opswat.com
Founded in 2002, OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple engine scanning solutions. With both manageability and multi-scanning products, OPSWAT offers simplified and comprehensive SDKs that reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams
Where Have All the Free Anti-Virus Downloads Gone?
For the past several years, AVG Technologies has led the download battle on CNET, with weekly downloads on the order of 1.2 to 2.0 million. Avast has typically been second, a few hundred thousand behind AVG Technologies and Avira a poor 3rd. However, the sum of the latter two has typically been greater than AVG’s. Avast has blogged that the sum of a handful of downloads on other sites has given them more downloads than AVG.
For the week ending 7/16 AVG has gone below a million on www.download.com.
• AVG – 986k
• Avira – 261k
• Ad-Aware – 238k
• Avast – 173k
• Comodo – 89k
The above could represent (a) a major changing of the guard in “free” (b) potentially a slowdown in downloads (c) slower churn among the major vendors (d) Microsoft’s free product cannibalizing everyone (e) glitches at www.download.com (f) major slowdown overall
The marketing people at Avast, in particular have to be saying “Dám si jedno pivo prosím”, and not in a happy way, with the decrease in downloads. The gap in weekly downloads between them and AVG Technologies has increased to over 800k. Ouch.
It’ll be interesting to see what Opswat’s September market share figures will show. From “June 2011 OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share”
Worldwide Market Share Leaders – Product
• Microsoft Security Essentials – 10.66% (was 3rd in March report)
• Avira Antivir Personal – 10.18% (was 2nd in March report)
• Avast Free Antivirus – 8.66% (was 1st in March report)
About OPSWAT
Founded in 2002, OPSWAT provides soft¬ware engineers and IT professionals with development tools and data services to power manageability and security solutions. www.opswat.com
For the week ending 7/16 AVG has gone below a million on www.download.com.
• AVG – 986k
• Avira – 261k
• Ad-Aware – 238k
• Avast – 173k
• Comodo – 89k
The above could represent (a) a major changing of the guard in “free” (b) potentially a slowdown in downloads (c) slower churn among the major vendors (d) Microsoft’s free product cannibalizing everyone (e) glitches at www.download.com (f) major slowdown overall
The marketing people at Avast, in particular have to be saying “Dám si jedno pivo prosím”, and not in a happy way, with the decrease in downloads. The gap in weekly downloads between them and AVG Technologies has increased to over 800k. Ouch.
It’ll be interesting to see what Opswat’s September market share figures will show. From “June 2011 OPSWAT Report on Worldwide Antivirus Application Market Share”
Worldwide Market Share Leaders – Product
• Microsoft Security Essentials – 10.66% (was 3rd in March report)
• Avira Antivir Personal – 10.18% (was 2nd in March report)
• Avast Free Antivirus – 8.66% (was 1st in March report)
About OPSWAT
Founded in 2002, OPSWAT provides soft¬ware engineers and IT professionals with development tools and data services to power manageability and security solutions. www.opswat.com
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 – Kaspersky Beta
Kaspersky currently has Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 in beta. You can learn more about the product and register to download at http://support.kaspersky.com/kis2011/all?more=1&qid=208284251
Features Being Promoted in Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
• File security detection. A function to define the file security before starting work with it has been added
• Technologies of rootkit detection (rootkit is a program designed to hide the fact of system infection) has been improved
• Protection against unknown threats has been improved with the help of System Watcher
• Protection against phishing has been improved: information about the availability of a particular resource is first checked in the local database of phishing websites stored on Kaspersky Lab servers. Next, a request is sent to the “cloud” (Kaspersky Security Network). If there is no information in the two sources, heuristic analysis is carried out
• The URL Advisor module has been enhanced.
• The application’s efficiency has been improved and its impact on the computer’s performance has been reduced
• The impact of the application on the system performance has been optimized for the most common online user scenarios: watching movies (including high-resolution (HDTV)), listening to the radio, searching and browsing websites, making calls via VoIP (Skype and etc.), online games and etc
• Touch-screen support added
• The interface of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 has been considerably re-designed
The list above is not comprehensive.
Good article about how Kaspersky has been growing over the past year and is rapidly closing in on Trend Micro to become the number 3 “800 pound” gorilla. “Kaspersky Signs Monster Enterprise Deal”. View Larry Walsh’s Channelnomics blog about this on http://channelnomics.com/2011/06/02/kaspersky-signs-monster-enterprise-deal/
Makes for a good read while sitting in cafes in Prague, Amsterdam, and Silicon Valley.
How Was Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 Viewed?
PC Magazine gave Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 4.0 stars http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
Seth Rosenblatt and CNET’s readers gave the product 4.5 stars http://download.cnet.com/Kaspersky-Internet-Security/3000-18510_4-10012072.html?tag=mncol;6
VB100 Awards – 7 out of 8 since December 2009 http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=74
www.av-test.org Certified on Windows 7 in Q1 http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php
www.av-comparatives.org The antivirus product was one of only two to receive 3 stars (highest rating) in the May Retrospective Test http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months
Also in Beta
• Webroot has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Features Being Promoted in Kaspersky Internet Security 2012
• File security detection. A function to define the file security before starting work with it has been added
• Technologies of rootkit detection (rootkit is a program designed to hide the fact of system infection) has been improved
• Protection against unknown threats has been improved with the help of System Watcher
• Protection against phishing has been improved: information about the availability of a particular resource is first checked in the local database of phishing websites stored on Kaspersky Lab servers. Next, a request is sent to the “cloud” (Kaspersky Security Network). If there is no information in the two sources, heuristic analysis is carried out
• The URL Advisor module has been enhanced.
• The application’s efficiency has been improved and its impact on the computer’s performance has been reduced
• The impact of the application on the system performance has been optimized for the most common online user scenarios: watching movies (including high-resolution (HDTV)), listening to the radio, searching and browsing websites, making calls via VoIP (Skype and etc.), online games and etc
• Touch-screen support added
• The interface of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 has been considerably re-designed
The list above is not comprehensive.
Good article about how Kaspersky has been growing over the past year and is rapidly closing in on Trend Micro to become the number 3 “800 pound” gorilla. “Kaspersky Signs Monster Enterprise Deal”. View Larry Walsh’s Channelnomics blog about this on http://channelnomics.com/2011/06/02/kaspersky-signs-monster-enterprise-deal/
Makes for a good read while sitting in cafes in Prague, Amsterdam, and Silicon Valley.
How Was Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 Viewed?
PC Magazine gave Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 4.0 stars http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
Seth Rosenblatt and CNET’s readers gave the product 4.5 stars http://download.cnet.com/Kaspersky-Internet-Security/3000-18510_4-10012072.html?tag=mncol;6
VB100 Awards – 7 out of 8 since December 2009 http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=74
www.av-test.org Certified on Windows 7 in Q1 http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php
www.av-comparatives.org The antivirus product was one of only two to receive 3 stars (highest rating) in the May Retrospective Test http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months
Also in Beta
• Webroot has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Webroot Cloud Antivirus 2012 – Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus Released – Their Beta Agreement
October 4 addendum - Webroot has finally come out with 2012 product. Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus received 4.5 stars in its recent PC Magazine review. It tied for Editors' Choice with Norton Antivirus 2012 from PC Magazine's Neil Rubenking. The review was posted October 4. Go to the following link for the review:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393678,00.asp
Go to the link below for PC Magazine's rankings of the Antivirus 2012 products reviewed to date.
http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-antivirus-software-2012-pc.html
Original Post
Webroot currently has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta. You can learn more about the product and register to download at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
Webroot is playing it close to the vest about the product. Below are their “we’re no fun” paragraphs in the licensing agreement.
The Beta Software and all information provided by Webroot about the Beta Software is confidential information of Webroot ("Confidential Information"). You will not disclose Confidential Information to any third party or use Confidential Information for any purpose other than as expressly permitted in this Agreement. You agree that You will treat all Confidential Information with the same degree of care as You accord to Your own confidential information, which in no event will be less than reasonable care.
You will not disclose the existence of this Agreement, the existence, features, or capabilities of the Beta Software, or any of the activities pursued hereunder, without Webroot's prior written consent.
What was it Shakespeare wrote about lawyers?
The usual suspects, McAfee, Avast, Avira, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months.
Also in Beta
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Addendum, July 21 - AV-Comparatives Whole Product Real World Dynamic Test
Webroot may need to look at their scanning engine following the results of AV-Comparatives Whole Product Real World Dynamic Test, March through June. Webroot's product rated "tested" http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/dyn/wpdt2011_1_en.pdf
To see how PC Magazine has ranked some of the latest releases of best Internet Security 2012 suites, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-internet-security-suites-2012-pc.html . To see ratings of 20 best Internet Security 2011 suites, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393678,00.asp
Go to the link below for PC Magazine's rankings of the Antivirus 2012 products reviewed to date.
http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-antivirus-software-2012-pc.html
Original Post
Webroot currently has Webroot Cloud Antivirus in beta. You can learn more about the product and register to download at http://www.webroot.com/customerSupport/betaRegistration.php
Webroot is playing it close to the vest about the product. Below are their “we’re no fun” paragraphs in the licensing agreement.
The Beta Software and all information provided by Webroot about the Beta Software is confidential information of Webroot ("Confidential Information"). You will not disclose Confidential Information to any third party or use Confidential Information for any purpose other than as expressly permitted in this Agreement. You agree that You will treat all Confidential Information with the same degree of care as You accord to Your own confidential information, which in no event will be less than reasonable care.
You will not disclose the existence of this Agreement, the existence, features, or capabilities of the Beta Software, or any of the activities pursued hereunder, without Webroot's prior written consent.
What was it Shakespeare wrote about lawyers?
The usual suspects, McAfee, Avast, Avira, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months.
Also in Beta
• F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Addendum, July 21 - AV-Comparatives Whole Product Real World Dynamic Test
Webroot may need to look at their scanning engine following the results of AV-Comparatives Whole Product Real World Dynamic Test, March through June. Webroot's product rated "tested" http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/dyn/wpdt2011_1_en.pdf
To see how PC Magazine has ranked some of the latest releases of best Internet Security 2012 suites, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-internet-security-suites-2012-pc.html . To see ratings of 20 best Internet Security 2011 suites, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
Thursday, July 07, 2011
AMTSO Guidelines on Facilitating Testability
There is another brief publication out by the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO) for those who may do deep dive or even casual testing of internet security products. “AMTSO Guidelines on Facilitating Testability” This document covers ways in which “testers and vendors can collaborate and share information in order to make testing more efficient and accurate, and to enable external verification of results.” It is only six pages long but is a good read. It was published in late May. www.amtso.org
AMTSO (as I’ve previously written) has a number of useful documents for those who perform testing for companies, the “reviewers” of the world, and people who may want to be able to look at product tests and reviews at a deeper level than the casual reader. The list of titles is at http://www.amtso.org/documents.html and they’re free! These will make you much smarter than a fifth grader! No guarantees in how mentioning these documents will be useful to help meet people in clubs or cafes across North America and Europe.
If you can read only one document, I suggest “The Fundamental Principals of Testing”. It is a five-page read and will provide some points to look at tests with a more discerning eye (as well as design your own tests and reviews). Sometimes the wisdom of experts is better than the wisdom of crowds, even if the experts don’t have 300k or 500k Facebook fans. Read some of AMTSO’s documents before this season’s Internet Security 2012 reviews come out. Click here to “like”. Then send to all your friends. ;) . Check out the member organizations when you visit their site.
About AMTSO
The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, or AMTSO, is dedicated to helping improve the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware technology testing. AMTSO membership is open to industry-wide academics, reviewers, testers and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO. www.amtso.org
AMTSO (as I’ve previously written) has a number of useful documents for those who perform testing for companies, the “reviewers” of the world, and people who may want to be able to look at product tests and reviews at a deeper level than the casual reader. The list of titles is at http://www.amtso.org/documents.html and they’re free! These will make you much smarter than a fifth grader! No guarantees in how mentioning these documents will be useful to help meet people in clubs or cafes across North America and Europe.
If you can read only one document, I suggest “The Fundamental Principals of Testing”. It is a five-page read and will provide some points to look at tests with a more discerning eye (as well as design your own tests and reviews). Sometimes the wisdom of experts is better than the wisdom of crowds, even if the experts don’t have 300k or 500k Facebook fans. Read some of AMTSO’s documents before this season’s Internet Security 2012 reviews come out. Click here to “like”. Then send to all your friends. ;) . Check out the member organizations when you visit their site.
About AMTSO
The Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, or AMTSO, is dedicated to helping improve the objectivity, quality and relevance of anti-malware technology testing. AMTSO membership is open to industry-wide academics, reviewers, testers and vendors, subject to guidelines determined by AMTSO. www.amtso.org
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
AV-Comparatives.org Whole Product Dynamic Test – AV-Test.org Certification Test Combined
The table below combines the top 10 products from AV-Test.org and their Q1 certification test on Windows 7 with AV-Comparatives.org and their Whole Product Dynamic Test (January through June). The top 10 products making the cut were BitDefender Internet Security Suite 2011, F-Secure Internet Security 2011, Norton Internet Security 2011, G Data Internet Security 2011, Panda Internet Security 2011, Kaspersky Internet Security, AVG Internet Security 2011, Sophos Endpoint Security and Control 9.5, and Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2011, and Eset Smart Security 4.2.
For AV-Test.org (22 products), scores in Protection, Repair, and Usability were averaged together. The top score achievable for each category was 6.0. The product also had to be certified. For AV-Comparatives.org (17 products), the percent of malware blocked during the January through May timeframe was used.
av-test.org and av-comparatives.org Combined Test Results
About the Results
You probably will never see this table on either web site. It’s interesting that the same three products were in the top three in each test. Kudos to them. If this were a top 12 table, Avast and Avira would have made the cut. Five products failed to achieve certification by AV-test.org.
Go to www.av-test.org to see the 1-page reports for each product and to view the individual scores for Protection, Repair and Usability. The table is sortable.
Go to http://www.av-comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/dynamic-tests to play with the interactive table. You can also modify the time period and view results.
For AV-Test.org (22 products), scores in Protection, Repair, and Usability were averaged together. The top score achievable for each category was 6.0. The product also had to be certified. For AV-Comparatives.org (17 products), the percent of malware blocked during the January through May timeframe was used.
av-test.org and av-comparatives.org Combined Test Results
About the Results
You probably will never see this table on either web site. It’s interesting that the same three products were in the top three in each test. Kudos to them. If this were a top 12 table, Avast and Avira would have made the cut. Five products failed to achieve certification by AV-test.org.
Go to www.av-test.org to see the 1-page reports for each product and to view the individual scores for Protection, Repair and Usability. The table is sortable.
Go to http://www.av-comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/dynamic-tests to play with the interactive table. You can also modify the time period and view results.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
F-Secure Internet Security 2012 – F-Secure Beta
F-Secure currently has F-Secure Internet Security 2012 in beta. You can learn more about the product and register to download at http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/IS2012beta/
Enhancement’s Promoted in F-Secure Internet Security 2012
• Improved User Experience - Keyless installation All-new Launch pad
• Optimized for Mobile Broadband - Automatically optimizes the security solution’s mobile broadband usage within home network and abroad (roaming).
• All-new Online Safety - Browsing Protection, Web Filtering and Time Lock features are combined
• Best Protection - Renewed Deepguard, real-time protection network and other proactive methods provide protection against malware with sophisticated, multilayered protection.
One of the nice things about their 2011 Internet Security product was that they are in “the cloud”. The cloud-enabled antivirus has multiple scanning engines to help detect against harmful files and malicious content. Unlike a handful of competitors, F-Secure does not offer some free online storage as part of the package.
Third Party Testing - 2011 Product
PC Magazine – Internet Security 2011 received 3.0 stars out of 5 in PC Magazine’s review of the product http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
Virus Bulletin – F-Secure received has VB100 awards in both June (Windows Server 2008) and April (Windows Server Professional) of this year http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=23
www.Av-test.org – Internet Security 2011 was certified on Windows 7 in Q1 receiving 5.5, 4.5, and 5.5 respectively for Protection, Repair, and Usability http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php
www.Av-comparatives.org – Internet Security 2011 received 2 stars and tied for 8 out of 12 in Av-comparative’s May “Retrospective Test (static detection of new/unknown malicious software”) http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, Webroot, Kaspersky, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months.
Also in Beta
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
Enhancement’s Promoted in F-Secure Internet Security 2012
• Improved User Experience - Keyless installation All-new Launch pad
• Optimized for Mobile Broadband - Automatically optimizes the security solution’s mobile broadband usage within home network and abroad (roaming).
• All-new Online Safety - Browsing Protection, Web Filtering and Time Lock features are combined
• Best Protection - Renewed Deepguard, real-time protection network and other proactive methods provide protection against malware with sophisticated, multilayered protection.
One of the nice things about their 2011 Internet Security product was that they are in “the cloud”. The cloud-enabled antivirus has multiple scanning engines to help detect against harmful files and malicious content. Unlike a handful of competitors, F-Secure does not offer some free online storage as part of the package.
Third Party Testing - 2011 Product
PC Magazine – Internet Security 2011 received 3.0 stars out of 5 in PC Magazine’s review of the product http://kensek.blogspot.com/2011/04/best-internet-security-suites-2011-pc.html
Virus Bulletin – F-Secure received has VB100 awards in both June (Windows Server 2008) and April (Windows Server Professional) of this year http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archive/vendor?id=23
www.Av-test.org – Internet Security 2011 was certified on Windows 7 in Q1 receiving 5.5, 4.5, and 5.5 respectively for Protection, Repair, and Usability http://www.av-test.org/certifications.php
www.Av-comparatives.org – Internet Security 2011 received 2 stars and tied for 8 out of 12 in Av-comparative’s May “Retrospective Test (static detection of new/unknown malicious software”) http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_retro_may2011.pdf
The usual suspects, McAfee, Panda, Avast, Avira, AVG Technologies, Webroot, Kaspersky, G Data, among others, will be announcing their betas over the coming months.
Also in Beta
• Trend Micro Maximum Security 2012 and others at https://www.trendbeta.com/pages/main
• Norton Internet Security 2012 and Anti-Virus 2012 beta http://us.norton.com/beta/index.jsp
• BitDefender Total Security 2012 http://beta2012.bitdefender.com
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