NovaShield, Inc., leader in advanced anti-malware technology, today announced the availability of NovaShield AntiMalware version 2.0, a cutting-edge behavior-based security software for Windows XP and Windows Vista designed specifically to detect, block, and remove sophisticated and rapidly morphing malware such as drive-by-downloads, Trojans, keyloggers and rootkits, as well as traditional threats such as viruses and worms.
"Today's hackers are targeting unsuspecting PC users by silently infecting computers to send spam, perform web attacks and carry out other crimes," said John Mitchell, professor of computer science at Stanford University. "Infected computers often show no symptoms of infection, making it difficult to know you've got a problem. Anti-malware solutions need to be innovative and need to be catching new threats."
The problem with traditional AV technologies
For years, anti-virus solutions have focused on identifying malware by using signatures as a tag to mark and quarantine known threats. Within the last 18 months, however, research shows the average size of signature databases having doubled and, in some cases, tripled. Soaring into the hundreds of thousands of signatures, bloated databases result in longer scan times, added memory consumption, and higher false positive rates.
"The number of viruses and malware out there is growing at an alarming rate and the idea of tracking them by signature-based solutions alone continues to be absurd," said Robin Bloor, lead analyst at Bloor Research. "NovaShield's behavior-tracking software maps high- and low-level events at the kernel in order to block new threats and thereby fills a widening gap left by traditional AV or whitelisting products for the average home PC user and small business."
Signature-less protection from malware
Based on breakthrough research at the University of Wisconsin's leading computer science and security lab and with backing from the National Science Foundation, NovaShield AntiMalware approaches malware detection through a unique form of behavior-based threat detection called specification-based monitoring.
Whereas traditional signature-based anti-virus solutions rely on hundreds of thousands of policies to detect potential threats and require an average 19-day window of exposure before a new infection can be detected, removed and blocked, NovaShield AntiMalware's underlying Secure Activity Filtering Engine (SAFE) technology employs fewer than a dozen generalized policies that identify malicious activities in real-time.
NovaShield AntiMalware version 2.0 incorporates several significant upgrades including:
- Enhanced Kernel modules to monitor file, registry, network and process activity for all programs running on the host
- Faster Policy engine that analyzes activities captured by the kernel modules and detects -- in real time -- malicious activities associated with malware
- A powerful remediation process that quarantines and/or removes every detected malware and all associated malicious activities (e.g., files and registries changes)
- An improved whitelisting feature to allow users to customize the system.
"PC security experts have been talking about the problems with traditional anti-virus technologies for years," said Dr. Somesh Jha, co-founder and chief scientist at NovaShield. "Our approach is well designed to supplement the protection afforded by current signature-scanning anti-virus programs while preventing emerging threats from taking root and stealing private information such as social security numbers, passwords, and credit card transactions."
Pricing and Availability
NovaShield AntiMalware 2.0 is available for immediate download from http://www.novashield.com for a 90-day free trial.
About NovaShield
NovaShield Inc. (http://www.NovaShield.com), founded by leading scientists at the University of Wisconsin, develops technology to detect and eliminate the next generation of malware threats on personal computers. Their breakthrough approach rapidly identifies previously unseen malware by using specification-based monitoring, a unique real-time approach for effectively detecting looming threats. |
