NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, June 2009
Panda Introduces Totally New Antivirus Technology – FREE
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director;
Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX; Radio & TV Show Host

Iwilsker@apcug.net
(click to email author)

WEBSITES:
http://www.cloudantivirus.com

Most antivirus software has become bloated and a drag on system performance. One major issue with most antivirus products is the time delay between the detection of a new threat, and the time it takes to push updates to users of the software. Thousands of new viruses and variants appear every day, and it is a major burden on the purveyors of antivirus software to keep their respective products up to date.

Regrettably, many users update their antivirus software daily, which is woefully inadequate, as most publishers of the antivirus software now send out updates several times a day, and in some cases, several times an hour! It often takes hours for updates to be created by the software companies and ready for users to update their software. This still leaves the users’ computers unprotected from the newest threats during the lengthy time that it takes for new threats to be detected, analyzed, neutralized, and distributed to the users of the software. An analogy would be reading the printed daily newspaper you may have found in your driveway this morning; it may be today’s newspaper, but it is really yesterday’s news. That is the same way that antivirus updates work; the updates that you download and install right now, are viruses that were first detected hours ago, leaving your computer vulnerable to those threats during those hours. You may also have no protection from new viruses and other malware that have been detected in the wild, but not yet included in the latest updates. In the past, when many new viruses spread slowly, this time lag was nor serious, but with the rapidly spreading threats of today, that delay can be deadly in a cyber context. We blissfully traverse the internet safe in the knowledge that our just updated antivirus will protect us from whatever we may come across, but this blissful ignorance may fail to consider the new threats in circulation. Philosophically, if our antivirus and anti-malware software was so good, why do millions of computers that have updated antivirus software still get infected?

Another issue with the bloated antivirus that many of us use is the large amount of system resources consumed by our antivirus software when running, and the degradation of performance that inevitably occurs. Many of us are unaware that the antivirus and anti-malware software that we may be using may be causing a significant slowdown in our computers’ ability to process data, which is a frequent cause of degraded computer performance. Some of the more progressive publishers of antivirus software have addressed this predicament by releasing software that is easy on system resources, and does not significantly degrade performance, but these companies are in the minority; most antivirus software currently in use, including several of the most popular titles, are a drag on the system.

Panda Software, a well respected Spanish publisher of excellent quality system security software, recently released a free new product that is claimed to resolve the problems mentioned above. Using the concept of “cloud computing”, Panda is now distributing its new product “Cloud Antivirus”. In its simplest form, cloud computing takes advantage of the combined knowledge and processing power of large sectors of the internet, where networks synergistically and instantly work together to intelligently solve problems. Panda’s Cloud Antivirus claims to capitalize on that power by using Panda’s servers in the cloud, and is currently a free download at http://www.cloudantivirus.com. By utilizing the power of the cloud, Panda claims that new virus and malware signatures can be available to users of Cloud Antivirus in as little as six minutes, closing much of the window of vulnerability from new threats. What makes Panda Cloud Antivirus such an interesting product is that it is very easy on system resources, as all of the work of protecting your computer is done in the cloud, rather than by the CPU in your computer, which does not degrade system performance while providing the maximum in protection. In addition to not degrading performance, it is designed as an “install and forget” product that removes the user from the loop of updates, system configuration, and decisions about threats encountered. Simply stated, Panda Cloud Antivirus can be downloaded and installed, and no further intervention or updates are necessary in order to have comprehensive antivirus and anti-malware protection.

It should be noted that as I type this, the version of Panda Cloud Antivirus that is available for download is described by Panda as a “beta” or pre-release version, but by entering an email address when downloading the software, Panda states that it will provide a free activation key for the final version when released, and that Cloud Antivirus will remain a free product.

Cloud Antivirus works by using a small, resource sparing dashboard on the user’s desktop. This dashboard connects your computer to Panda’s data center, which tracks anything that may be even slightly suspicious, with Panda’s data center stopping the threat before it can become active on the computer. By instantly combining the real-time threat “intelligence” from thousands of computers, Panda can better detect and react to threats than more traditional antivirus software. Panda’s CEO Juan Santana says that Panda’s cloud, “harnesses the knowledge of Panda's global community of more than 10 million users to automatically identify and classify new malware strains in real-time." In terms of the rapid growth of cyber threats, "PandaLabs detected more malware in 2008 than the previous 17 years combined, representing a major tipping point for both consumers and the antivirus industry as a whole," said Santana.

In addition to being reactive, this intelligence can also be proactive, allowing Panda to predict evolving threats, and be ready to deal with them before they become an active threat. By using the power of the cloud, rather than the power of the user’s computer, there is no drag on system resources, while the computer is protected from the latest threats with minimal lag time.

Panda’s Cloud Antivirus is a fascinating new technology that holds great promise. It may take a paradigm shift not to download frequent updates, and scan everything opened and run on the computer, which consumes great amounts of processing power and slows the loading and execution of programs and data. If this new technology is proven as reliable as I hope it initially appears to be, Panda may be a bigger threat to its competitors than malware will be to us.

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