Research carried out by
Panda
has found that nearly a quarter of home computers using updated antivirus
software were infected with malicious software.
The internet security company claims this shows that traditional anti-virus
programs are failing to cope with the latest attacks.
The firm admitted that some computers protected by its software failed the
test, although it said that its products fared well compared to the other
popular anti-virus systems.
“We have not found a single anti-virus vendor that had no users with an
infection”, said Pedro Bustamante, Panda’s Senior Research Advisor. “The
traditional way of doing things is obviously not enough – we need to detect
viruses before they get to the lab”.
Last year the firm scanned 1.5 million home and business computers using an
online tool. More than a third of the computers tested had updated anti-virus
software installed, but of these almost a quarter were infected with malicious
software running in the computer’s memory.
Along with other security firms, Panda has warned that the number of
malicious programs targeting computers is increasing as the authors attempt to
evade detection, if only for a short time. It claims that its latest technology,
Collective Intelligence, can help overcome the problem.
The system relies on computers reporting activity from unknown and possibly
malicious software. An online system then automatically classifies the program
as either malicious or harmless, so a decision to block the problem can be made
without waiting for a researcher to examine it.
Current Panda security products contribute information to the Collective
Intelligence system but do not actively scan new programs using the technology.
Panda told Computeractive that a new range of products that use a direct
connection to the online system will become available “in the next few months”.
“People will see an immediate improvement with improved detection capacity”,
Mr. Bustamante told Computeractive.
To publicise Collective Intelligence, Panda is offering to scan computers
free using an
online
tool.
Users who find that their computer is not infected will be entered into a
prize draw to win an iPod Nano portable music player, and virus-free businesses
can enter into a draw to win £5,000.
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