New antivirus system operates remotely on any PC or cellphone
IDG News Service
Antivirus software on your PC could soon be a thing of the past: US engineers
have developed a new approach to malicious software detection using ‘cloud
computing’, where applications are provided through the Internet.
Traditional antivirus software is becomign increasingly ineffective due to
severe vulnerabilities in their engine. The boffins observed malware – malicious
software – detection rates as low as 35 per cent against the most recent
threats.
The new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the
“network cloud” and off PCs. CloudAV analyses suspicious files using multiple
antivirus and behavioural detection programs simultaneously.
“Our CloudAV virtualises and parallelises detection using multiple antivirus
engines, significantly increasing overall protection,” said Farnam Jahanian,
professor of computer science at the University of Michigan.
To develop this novel approach, the researchers evaluated 12 traditional
antivirus programs – Avast, AVG, BitDefender, ClamAV, CWSandbox, F-Prot,
F-Secure,
Kaspersky, McAfee, Norman Sandbox, Symantec and Trend Micro – against 7,220
malware samples, including viruses.
Traditional antivirus checks documents and programs as they are accessed.
Because of technological constraints, only one antivirus detector is typically
used at a time.
CloudAV, however, uses 12 different detectors together to determine the safety
of any new document or program received. It is accessible via any computer
or mobile device that runs a simple software agent.
The new approach also caches analysis results, speeding up the process compared
with traditional antivirus software. This could be useful for workplaces,
for example, where multiple employees might access the same document.
CloudAV could also be used in cell phones and other devices that aren’t robust
enough to carry powerful antivirus software, the scientists said.
Connect with friends all over the world. Get Yahoo! India Messenger at
http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/?wm=n/
Join Access India convention: For updates on it visit:
http://accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm
Registration is now open!
To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
