antivirus

The next version of Apple's OS X, which is due out Friday, may bundle antivirus capabilities.

Mac security firm Intego said that the latest version of the operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, could have an antimalware feature, according to reports, in a blog post Tuesday.

The company published a screenshot which it said was of the security feature detecting a Trojan in a download, made via Apple's Safari Web browser.

Intego pointed out that the most recent Mac adverts compare Mac security favorably to PCs. However, security experts have historically been divided over the relative security … Read more

A study commissioned by Web security company AVG Technologies and the Chief Marketing Officers Council (CMO) points out an interesting contradiction between people's concerns and actions regarding security risks on social networking sites.

The summary report says that "while the majority of social networking users are afflicted by web-borne security problems, less than one third are taking actions to protect themselves online."

Unfortunately, the data provided to the media as of Tuesday afternoon says very little about the study's methodology, lacks the actual questions asked, and in some cases lacks the actual percentages of responses. It … Read more

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 went live this week, and we've created a slideshow to help users see what's new and what needs work in one of the leading security programs.

UPDATED: Benchmarks provided by CNET Labs were added on Monday, August 24.

A new season of security suites is upon us, and Kaspersky has made improvements to its Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus programs that include changes indicative of where security software as an industry is leaning. Three new features along with expected upgrades to its antivirus engine keep Kaspersky competitive.

The full-feature suite Kaspersky Internet Security offers a complete and competitive range of security options. The new features in the 2010 edition include a behavioral-based detection system called the Urgent Detection System. The UDS utilizes the anonymous data of 10 million Kaspersky customers who choose to participate in submitting their system scans to Kaspersky's central servers for analysis. In fact, the UDS must be opted-out of--there's a check box and data collection statement to read when you install the program.

Although this might sound insidious, it's actually a smart way to leverage a huge consumer base for security purposes as long as the data remains anonymous. Symantec's Norton 2010 will contain a behavioral check, too, and what both do is look at programs installed on your computer and judge their safety based on how many people have them installed and how they behave. Among UDS's better sub-features are the ability to customize how long it takes to pass judgment on a new program and per-user configuration of the rules governing program behavior.

Even if a program has deep penetration and it starts behaving badly, Kaspersky will block it. If it's an unknown, Kaspersky will treat it skeptically, monitoring and restricting the program until it has been proven safe. The Vulnerability Scan option, available under the Scan tab, utilizes tech from Secunia to determine which programs are potential security risks because they lack recent updates or patches. For programs that may not warn you that they have a pending security update, such as Adobe Flash, having this tool baked-in could be exceptionally useful. … Read more

Major malicious software epidemics like the much-feared Conficker virus may be fewer and farther between these days, but just because you can't see a threat, doesn't mean it can't hurt you. To that effect, we've rounded up a collection of top antispyware applications on Download.com. Not only will these six favorite programs help catch out lurking intruders, but also their services won't cost a cent, unless you choose to upgrade.

In the meantime, those considering an upgrade in the fall to Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system should take note that Microsoft has enhanced … Read more

Malware posing as antivirus software is spreading fast with tens of millions of computers infected each month, according to a report to be released on Wednesday from PandaLabs.

PandaLabs found 1,000 samples of fake antivirus software in the first quarter of 2008. In a year, that number had grown to 111,000. And in the second quarter of 2009, it reached 374,000, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs said in a recent interview.

"We've created a specific team to deal with this," he said, of the rogue antivirus software that issues false warnings of infections … Read more

AVG's free antivirus product temporarily blocked users from getting to iTunes late last week, detecting it as a Trojan, the company said on Monday.

For about five hours on Friday starting around 4 p.m. PDT, AVG users couldn't access iTunes because of the false alarm.

"AVG discovered the false alarm in the virus signature engine relating to some localization components of iTunes (so not iTunes as a virus but rather some localization components of iTunes) and it was fixed within 5 hours," AVG spokesperson Siobhan MacDermott said in a statement. "AVG would like to … Read more

People routinely look at me as if I'm nuts. Oh, wait, there's a second part to that sentence: People routinely look at me as if I'm nuts when I tell them I don't use any security software: no Zone Alarm, no Norton, nothing.

Instead, I rely on the security measures built into Windows and a few tricks I've learned. So far, it works fine for me.

That said, I usually advise friends and family members to install some kind of comprehensive security package. Because I consider all of you to be like family (yes, even … Read more

Norton Internet Security 2010 won't be available for a few more months, but the beta version is available now. In it, Symantec continues to build on the rejiggering it did last year. Built upon the dramatic performance improvements are deeper integration with other security tools like OnlineFamily. Norton, and the new Norton Insight for judging threats by community behavior as well as file definitions.