Microsoft has been working for a long time now in giving a good and reliable antivirus platform for all users. And when I say “for all users” I mean a free one. Seems that the dream is about to become true today: Microsoft Security Essentials will be release to the public as the free antivirus solution from Microsoft.
Microsoft Security Essentials will be replacing Windows Live OneCare as the security suite for viruses and malware. The suite can be installed in Windows XP, Vista and 7; and seems that already has a good review about the protection you can achieve, by giving you a shield for 97,8% of the existing malware in the web.
On the other side, some of the other reviews this antivirus platform has received so far say that the engine inside it is a little bit slow and intrusive with other applications.
And of course, leaders from other security solutions already are trying to tear this solution down, like McAfee: “will compete against other free solutions by offering limited security functionality”; or Symantec saying it is a “thin defense” and not giving you any type of antispam or identity safeguards.
Let people decide then.
Spam levels have increased in the last few months, since March more precisely, in a 141% said McAfee Threat Report from Second Quarter in 2009. The main reason resides in another increase: botnets (infected computers used for spamming and other attacks) up to 16%. Need an explicit number? That translates in 117 billion spam emails every day.
The number that is quite disturbing as well, is the botnets that are currently infected: 14 million computers. 150k every day, that represent 20% of all the computers that are acquired every day. And these botnets and zombies they are not only responsible for most of the spam, also they generated other attacks like denial-of-service to the White House, New York Stock Exchange and South Korean government web sites.
About South Korea, that’s the country that increased the most in the botnet activity, up to 45%; but yes, the US keeps in the top of that list with over 15% of the entire zombie population.
These spam numbers do not come alone, malware attacks have increased, specially the ones that infect the Windows auto-run that do not require any user intervention to “spread the evil”. That type of malware even outnumbered the Koobface or the Conflicker attacks.
This is a battle that will never end I think, I’m sure that those that depend on this kind of battles will not let it end.
What do you think?
McAfee has just released a new product within the family security and safety: McAfee Family Protection. This is a response OnlineFamily.Norton that was released previously by Symantec. Both suites are very similar and a very clear purpouse idea: control and monitor the content that is browse/download in your home PCs.
Here are some of the features that is included in McAfee Family Protection:
- Block websites according different categories (over 35 by default) and content filtering.
- Block unpermitted YouTube videos.
- Measure the internet time for each user or PC.
- Email and text alerts to notify when some configured rule is trying to be break.
- Monitoring and recording IM conversations and social networking sites.
As the rest of this type of products, it highly depends on a internet connection to validate latests changes in blocked categories and even uses a remote server to validate date and time (this way, if you have restriction accordin to a time window when your childrens can use internet, modifying system clock wont help avoiding this rule).
The cost it is based for three computers at $39.99.
It is a nice price for a security suite that can help you a lot with content filtering, as well as monitoring the type of information that your family is using.
