Slashdot Mirror
Intel Enters Anti-Virus Market
Jack writes "ITO holds a story on latest Intel investment: "Intel is branching into anti-virus security with a $16 million investment in Czech anti-virus software vendor Grisoft. Grisoft's AVG anti-virus is used on more than 25 million computers worldwide, according to the company."
Its not gone, i Just got it this weekend. It is just hidden on the site. I think ypu need to go to free.grisoft.com
AVG download page
I've used the free version of AVG for a few years now and it has been very good to me. I just hope that with this infuse of money Grisoft doesn't become too "corporate."
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
I'd say if it was going to go to hardware it would go to the BIOS, which can be updated with new virus definitions. I'm pretty sure you can't update your CPU currently and I haven't heard of any plans to change that in the future.
Back in the day (maybe now too) some BIOS's watched the boot sector of the computer for viruses that tried to install themselves there.
AVG is great for me because it barely uses any system resources. I run a small company with older hardware and it runs great on there. Much better than something like Norton which can really bog down one of those machines
Not quite 'buying over the company' as partnering with a local Czech VC to buy over a majority stake from another Czech VC firm.
From the press release on Grisoft's website:
Grisoft announces investment by Intel Capital and Enterprise Investors
Prague, Czech Republic - September 6th, 2005 - Grisoft, one of the leading providers of anti-virus security software, announced today that Enterprise Investors (EI), the largest private equity firm in Central and Eastern Europe, and Intel Capital, Intel Corporation's venture investment fund, have made a substantial investment in the company.
The $52 million investment in Grisoft by Enterprise Investors and Intel Capital will result in a new ownership structure of the company, with a majority stake being acquired from current owners Benson Oak Capital. As a result of this strategic transaction, the two new investors will own a 65% stake in Grisoft.
Kind of ties in to the future of anti-virus...AV is moving towards file behavioral analysis to determine a file's viral status since signature detection presents an increasingly serious zero-day problem. Virtualizing a file is a great way to determine behavior, and Intel is working on hardware-assisted virtualization:
http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/vptech/
Tie the two ideas together, and you might see one of the ways Intel is hoping to use it's virtualization technology.
Well there always is Avast antivirus.
There's always ClamAV, though it doesn't have real-time virus scanning and it's not as easy to use (a Windows install requires Cygwin). Still, it's an open source option.
if your intrested in tech like that you need to look at DEP .. is seems to me better than a hardware virus scaner as it makes their methods of invasion almost useless the new intel chips support hardware DEP and server 2003 & XPSP2 support it (although it isnt' set to the most picky level in XP which makes it pointless)
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Yes it got sold to symantec and is now SAV. Landesk is still around as a seperate company selling desktop/server management tools.
Sure. It's called "Trusted Computing". It's another name for "Disney Rights Management". I hope you enjoy getting what you're wishing for.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
So, this isn't Intel entering the anti-virus market. It's Intel Capital (the company's capital investment arm) making an investment in an software company. They're not buying the company, they're just picking up a chunk of it -- it's just like you or me buying stock.
http://www.symantec.com/press/1998/n980928.html
And AntiVir
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5 should be a direct link.
Caution with AntiVir. I have not tried it in about two years so things may have changed but the free version will not scan files on network drives, not even real time when they are opened and accessed from a network drive. If you are using AntiVir, you can test this with the Eicar test file stored on a share. This may not be a problem for some but a word of caution if this may apply to you. That is the only reason I switched to AVG from AntiVir for my home use.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
IIRC Intel used to have an AV product namely Intel LanDesk manager. Then they sold it to Symantec which became NAVCE (Norton Anti Virus Corporate Edition) and now SAVCE.
Who will guard the guards?
To this day, most motherboards still have this option, at least Award bioses do. It's not activated by default and is somewhat hidden in a sea of options.
It would be nice, however, if they would actually perform virus scans at given times, on given days, in the background. I don't think it would be too difficult or too much to ask for this to happen.
My sig beat up your sig.
And BitDefender
d -Free-Products.html
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Main/view/Downloa
Well I can tell you I've installed AVG free on >300 computers this year. Me. By myself. Basicly if I run into a homeuser client with an expired licence of some AV software that came with their computer they get a copy of AVGfree... 5 so far, this week. I'm numb to the mindless use of computers. Everybody gets AVG, MS-AS, and a real freakin firewall.
I hope Intel understands the value of AVG being free cause these morons would rather be plague carriers than pay for something other than a quick fix.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Don't bother with Cygwin just for AV. Clamwin is pretty sweet. No real-time scanning, but installation and configuration is fairly straight-forward -- and the database is updated several times a day.
The biggest problem it faces may be that it's so plain and easy to use that people have trouble accepting that it's as good as all the colorful commercial offerings they see. I wonder if Intel's gonna keep AVG's viruses.
Use it as a second scanner if you already have another AV program-- Clamwin is not a resource hog.
Oh yeah -- it's frequently used as an email scanner in networks of all sizes... don't worry about it's virus database!
In fact BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. It is supposed to be able to access your Input/Output devices like... er... hard disks!
The real problem is that bioses perform raw I/O, they have no concept of filesystems: is that an EXT2 filesystem? perhaps it's an NTFS?
Years ago they already had their own antivirus, Landesk Virus Protect, wich was a very good product for corporate networks.
Eventually they sold it around 1998 or 1999 to Symantec, where it became Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition (and now Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition).
Most Motherboard manufacturers have a windows executable that will let you update your motherboard.If your pc is very recent you can also usually use a flashdrive.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
My ASUS PC with an AMD processor has Antivirus built into the hardware. There's even a BIOS setting to enable/disable antivirus. AMD uses DEP.
e /1999/pr062199.htm
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5137832.html
ASUS uses TREND CHIP.
http://www.trendmicro.com/en/about/news/pr/archiv
So I guess Intel is playing catch up? On the marketing, I mean.