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Avira on PC Welt test

In the current issue of PC Welt (11/09), a total of eight security experts were called upon to give their best in virus detection. Security performance was not the only contributor to the excellent overall result: functionality, support, operation and system requirements also played their parts.

Avira Free Antivirus not only identified 100% of in-the-wild malware currently in circulation, but also 99.1% of the 461,187 lesser known viruses, known as zoo viruses. As the only producer that also offers a support hotline for its free product, we also managed to score highly in the support category with our German-developed software.

All of these facts, as well as the speedy updates and the satisfyingly low demand on system capacity, led the jury to offer the following summary: "Avira AntiVir Personal demonstrated the best overall scanning performance in the test. The manufacturer responded quickly to new threats. The program is also very fast, making it ideal for slower systems." So: enjoy visiting www.free-av.com for the best free virus scanner on the market.

Panda Global Protection 2009

Panda Security’s Collective Intelligence works as an online, real-time database that stores the majority of signature files, keeping them at a minimum on the endpoint. Every Panda user is a sensor for new malware, sending statistical data about malware prevalence back to the cloud. This new approach reduces bandwidth consumption on customers’ PCs and provides faster and more comprehensive up-to-date protection. Here's how Collective Intelligence works:

1.

Collection of data from the community. The system centrally collects and stores behavioral patterns of programs, file traces, new malware samples, etc. This data comes from Panda users and from other organizations. This extensive capacity to collect information provides greater visibility and full traceability of new malware techniques and distribution points.
2.

Automatic leverage of data. The system automatically analyzes and classifies the thousands of new samples received every day. To do this, an expert system correlates the data received from the user community with PandaLab’s extensive malware knowledge base. The system automatically returns verdicts (malware or goodware) on the new files received, thereby protecting users faster and better. Additionally, a constantly updated white list of over 10 million files prevents known ‘good’ files from being scanned, improving and speeding up the scanning process and minimizing the resource consumption of protected systems.
3.

Making the knowledge and solution available. This knowledge is delivered to users as web services or through signature file updates and real-time queries to the cloud.

The Collective Intelligence approach allows detecting much more malware than the manual detection system that some laboratories use. Also, it can detect even threats not yet identified. Combining Collective Intelligence and TruPrevent technologies. Panda is capable to detect the most sophisticated malware.


TruPrevent 2.0. Current malware behavior changes constantly and consequently, proactive technologies need to be updated overtime. The new TruPrevent 2.0 has been improved and is now integrated with Panda's Collective Intelligence platform, increasing the detection rate substantially while decreasing the amount of false positives. The new TruPrevent 2.0 has increased the detection rate by 45%.


Improved Customer Experience. Panda 2009 products offer a better customer experience than before thanks to the new registration process and the new user interface. The new user interface has been built based on "Panda Security usability lab" in which users tested Panda products' usability. Furthermore, thousands of beta-testers worldwide have tested and complimented Panda's new user interface.

Mobile virus writer arrested in Spain

Spanish police have caught their first mobile virus writer with the arrest of a 28 year-old man in Valencia.

The man allegedly wrote more than 20 different variants of the Cabir and Commwarrior worms, and sought to install them on mobile phones.

Police estimate that over 100000 phones may have been infected with the malware, and said that the damage may cost mobile operators and phone owners millions of euros.

"Mobile phone viruses are not nearly as common as the malware that strikes Windows desktops on a regular basis, but they are just as illegal in their intent," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"Viruses are not harmless pranks; they cause real harm disrupting business and personal communications as well as destroying and stealing sensitive data.

"The computer crime authorities around the globe are becoming more experienced at tracking down hackers and virus writers and, given this latest arrest, malware authors should be asking themselves whether it is really worth taking the risk."

The viruses were installed by users who thought they were downloading erotic photos, sports information or antivirus software.

One of the clues that led Spanish police to the arrest was the frequent inclusion of personal names, including 'Leslie' which is thought to be the man's fiancée.

Zlob malware hijacks YouTube

YouTube is again being used to distribute malware, this time a variant of the nuisance Zlob malware.
According to Secure Computing, attackers are using a fake video link on the site to initiate infection with the Trojan, which bombards its victims with porn adware, before installing data-stealing code.

What makes matters worse is that the only defence against such attacks on the popular video-hosting website is the diligence of YouTube’s security personnel, who can remove attacks as soon as they find them. However, according to Secure’s Paul Henry, this still gives the malware distributors a window of opportunity of at least hours.

“The fact is, no one expects to find malware hidden in YouTube files. Yet the medium’s popularity is highly alluring as a mass distribution vehicle for malicious code. What’s alarming is that - from a security perspective - many users and organisations will be blindsided and potentially seriously exposed,” he said. “Hackers look at cost of ownership. On YouTube it [the period of opportunity] is half a day.”

The trend to compromise legitimate websites to distribute malware was the latest frontier for criminals, with a string of well-known sites having been hacked in recent times, he said. YouTube’s allure was its massive and trusting user base, which cuts across every demographic.

Secure’s solution was for companies to invest in ‘reputation services’ such Secure Computing’s own, TrustedSource. Equally, companies might choose just to block access to YouTube.

YouTube-related hacks are nothing new. Last November, one appeared on MySpace that posed as a video from the site, but which turned out to be a similar malware scam to the Zlob hack without actually using the site itself.

More recently, hacks hosted on the site itself have started appearing, or using the promise of a YouTube video as bait.

One researcher even claimed to have uncovered a nest of vulnerabilities on the site, none of which YouTube’s owners, Google, had been willing to discuss until he threatened to go public.