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AVG Says It Has It All In Security
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-02-29
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The recent arrival of Grisoft's AVG Internet Security version 8.0 throws a battery of solutions at the myriad threats on the Internet.
AVG brought a number of components to one place, their global security strategist Larry Bridwell told SecurityProNews. The scan engine and threat detections occupy a low footprint on the PC, but can deal with more than virus scanning.
Bridwell walked us through a look at AVG Internet Security 8.0. The product represents their attempt to make a proactive approach to fighting security threats. For a long time, the reactive model of updating signature files as the sole defense against an attack did an ok job.
AVG still uses signatures, but technologies like their Safe-Search and Safe-Surf efforts, and Web Shield for stopping dangerous scripts, work more in real time.
In the 21st Century, threats arrive too fast. A simple search on the term "zero-day" demonstrates this. Speed became an issue in security as faster Internet connections and more participation in the Internet increased the number of targets for criminals.
On the speed side, Bridwell indicated the efficiency updates in the underlying technology for Internet Security 8.0. Instead of having two databases, one for virus signatures, the other for spyware, the new product does the virus and spyware scan at one time.
If the product is on a modern multi-core processor, the security suite recognizes this and uses multithreading to spread the load over them.
A current threat, malware that has been encrypted and re-archived into a format that could elude a virus scanner, should be stopped by AVG. Bridwell said they have improved the detection and unpacking of such dangerous archives to keep them from reaching a protected machine.
The December 2007 acquisition of LinkScanner made it into Internet Security 8.0 very quickly, needing only a couple of months to become part of the new product. It alerts people to potential threats in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft search results. AVG also added its rootkit detection software to the new version.
Bridwell also noted how the new product helps against the all too common problem of typosquatting on domains by potentially malicious types. Through their Safe-Surf technology, the suite will prescan such domains to check for web-based threats.
Internet Security 8.0 provides a lot of protection for its $55 price tag. We've been fans of the free AV-only product for years, and the full-bore Internet Security 8.0 suite merits a look.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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