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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."
If an Intel processor could be made to have hardware-based virus detection, integrating with this software-based virus detection, the team could be a very powerful deterrant to any future virus outbreaks. Imagine the hardware and software components working side by side to protect systems, giving future virus writers another hurdle to be cleared, when developing new virus infestations.
Hopefully the virus software can be made more efficient as well, so that running virus software on a system won't bog it down, hogging system resources like crazy, making people want to not run virus software in the first place. This has long been the bane of the majority of software packages, as the slowdown they cause for certain users, especially gamers, has made them desire to not run the software packages on their systems, resulting in these systems being more vulnerable to a virus outbreak.
Another added benefit that I can see from Intel buying this software, is that eventually if they integrate software and hardware aspects into a cohesive package that is well-implemented and able to fight viruses at a better efficiency then other programs, this will cause Intel based processors to stand out as well, as these days, virus protection and spyware protection are very important to the majority of users out there.
If Intel does this right, this can raise the bar for future processing efforts. Soon there will be more to consider when buying a new system then processing speed and cache size, might have to start considering integrated software as well in the not so distant future...
Good luck on this one Intel...
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how many of those are AVG free?
Does this mean that they're no longer going to release AVG updates?
I hope there remains a free version of AVG. That's what I install on the few windows machines I maintain for people. It's a lot easier to convince people to run antivirus software when they don't have to pay for it.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Any clue on why this might be a good strategic move for Intel?
I mean, it seems a bit random in that it's miles away from their 'core competencies' in chip design/manufacturing.
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.
This seems like a big company diversifying and buying a portion of a smaller company, not trying to incorporate antivirus capabilities into their microprocessor line of products.
And Centrino was just a branding for a specific CPU, WiFi, and chipset. It wasn't some flashy new technology, just flashy marketing. I don't think you can really make virus detection software at the CPU level anyway.
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
Yes, they plan to build chips that automatically shut down when they detect Windows running. Problem solved.
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.
Built in hardware Antivirus? An interesting thought... Actually...even more interesting now that I think about it. It'd be fairly difficult, I imagine, for a virus, if it got in, to disable or cripple a hardware Antivirus as opposed to a software one like Norton or McAfee.
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.
Windows is very much associated with Intel (ie. the term "Wintel" systems, for instance). Each time a virus, worm, etc., damages or destroys a massive number of Windows systems, Intel ends up looking very bad. In general, Intel PCs are known to be susceptible to malicious software, even though that is mainly due to the widespread use of Windows, and not directly related to the Intel chips.
So it greatly benefits them to improve the image of their chips, security-wise. This is something that others should be looking into as well. The PHP developers, while they do not develop hardware, do develop a very similar product. Both an Intel CPU and the PHP interpreter provide an instruction execution environment. As with nearly any such system, abuse is possible. That is why the PHP developers should follow Intel's lead, and create solutions that will help prevent third-party scripts from running amok, and thus tarnishing PHP's reputation.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Virus Found: AdvancedMediaDestruction.worm
Threat: 5
Ease of Removal: 3
Symptoms: Unit performs well in games and does not get nearly as hot under normal operation.
Removal Instructions:
1) Unplug computer and peripherals.
2) Take off side panel.
3) Locate large heatsink/fan and remove from chasis.
4) Remove the underlying chip (Warning: May cause demonic possession if not removed violently enough).
After which, you must replace the motherboard to fully alleviate all issues.
Prevention: Use Intel.
that the AVG code will now be "optimised" to cras^H^H^H^H run-slowly on AMD CPU's?
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
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.'
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
Intel makes a general purpose CPU, and it works just fine. They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user. Similiarly, the PHP developers shouldn't be bothered to fix the (common?) mistakes made by hobbyists or otherwise.
Microsoft seems to have a good strong competative pattern that they've been doing. I don't know if Intel can compete. Microsoft's pattern is:
1. Create an Operating System
2. Look at what software is successful and making money on that Operating System.
3. Create Microsoft version of same software
4. Integrate said software into the OS and use Windows leverage to force OEM's and manufacturers to bundle preinstalled on most computers.
So far, this has pretty much worked and usually kills whatever piece of software was successful on Windows. I think its about to happen with antivirus software. I dont know if Intel or the other antivirus companies can compete with this. What do you think?
Yep I remember Landesk 6.0 very fondly :-)
That's what makes Symantec Antivirus (and not consumer Norton brand nonsense) so good.
Time to build up another Antivirus and sell it off again for Intel?
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Why is Intel getting into the virus writing business? Aren't there enough virus writers out there doing this for free? We don't need the virus writers to be payed for doing this work! Is this some misguided plan to force everyone to run Linux?
:)
Oh, wait, did it say anti-virus? Never mind.
Remember, this is the real world. Things aren't always fair, and things don't always go as perhaps they ideally should.
While Intel probably shouldn't be responsible for helping prevent some of the problems associated with Windows, they should very well act so as to protect their image. Limiting the association of malicious software with their processors is a very good start. That is something that they alone must do, however, regardless of what Microsoft does.
Likewise for the developers of PHP. Sure, they can stand back and always blame the third-party developers who write shitty, insecure scripts. Or they could do the sensible thing, and take some action. Put measures in place to prevent, or at the very least limit, the ability of poorly written third-party scripts to reflect poorly on PHP.
It's far more beneficial for Intel or the PHP developers to act, rather than just throw blame around while their public images are decimated. Throwing blame around solves nothing, while taking real, technological action may very well prevent the problems in the first place.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Was a beacon of hope in the freeware = spyware world. Guess we're gonna kiss that one goodbye too :\
Sigs are for Terrorists.
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?
Funny, but not without truth. We wouldn't be thinking about extensive antivirus, much less hardware-integrated antivirus if Windows didn't basically have sex with the internet.
Why does the industry need to revolve around fixing Microsoft's problems?
snip
They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user.
Why? Cash!
You're right, Intel shouldn't be responsible for fixing Microsoft's problems. I'm certain they don't feel that way. Fixing Microsoft's problems, though, is worth millions of dollars. Assuming Intel is looking to build an anti-virus system at the CPU or chipset level (pure conjecture, but let's just assume), they wouldn't be doing it because they feel a responsibility to do so. Rather, they'd be looking for a competitive advantage over AMD, and another reason for customers to ditch their perfectly good (but three year-old) 2.0 Ghz Pentium 4.
Of course, I'm not even sure how such a hardware anti-virus would work, other than something similar to the NX system on the x86-64 chips. If such a beast does rear its head, though, rest assured that it won't be because someone felt a moral responsibility to fix some Microsoft bugs.
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.
BBSpot reported on this ages ago!
p rocessor.html
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/05/intel_virus_co
I think it would be quite difficult, from a practical perspective - not to mention a frighteningly massive security hole - for your BIOS was able to access every filesystem on your machine.
I think you'll also find that once the [protected mode] OS has booted, the BIOS is never used again anyway.
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!
Their tcpserv product gathers status data from all AVG "clients" on the network, including several hung off a 64kbps leased line - it's conservative on bandwidth. AVG for linux scans samba shares, and soon I will have AVG for sendmail monitoring mail in and out.
The AVGadmin client can be used to view reports, force updates and make configuration changes to all clients from my desktop - I've yet to try running their AVGadmin app under wine...
I'm very pleased with the flexibility offered by AVG network edition for linux/windows sites. I hope Intel doesn't pressure AVG to scrap the linux support.
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?
I remember this...
I dumped Trend Micro for AVG (if I remember correctly) over this issue.
I actually pay for my AVG licenses simply because I can afford to and good companies need to be kept alive.
Now strangely I wonder what will come of this. I don't really like doing business with either Intel *or* Microsoft. Though to be fair, Intel is certainly not Microsoft- who in mymind sets the standard for sleeze.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
I would not be surprised if someone in management at Intel tried AVG Free and liked it enough to "buy the company". I would think that the free version would continue to be available.
It's a good product; effective, low resource usage, and updated often. I have found Norton to be a TERRIBLE resource hog. McAfee is a bit better, but buggy (in my opinion).
What I ESPECIALLY like is the reponsiveness of the company itself. Version 6 had a fixed installation location; I believe in installing security software like a firewall, anti-spyware, and virus checkers to non-standard locations to at least help thwart possible attempts to disable them through malware. When I suggested via e-mail that the company change their installer to allow varying the installation location, it was clear they took me seriously -- and, lo-and-behold, version 7 allows the user to do just that.
This is about an Intel Virtual machine, which will wrest the PC away from Microsoft.
I wish I could remember where I read the article ( Register, Inquirer, or Tom's Hardware ), but
Intel is crafting a root kit virtual machine which snatches control from Microsoft.
The first target is a vitual ethernet that performs network security, including antivirus.
Everything else on the PC is also fair game.
With this root kit, Intel makes hardware primary again. No more begging silly Microsoft to clean
up their silly legacy x86 code, which inhibits Intel's plans for massive processor improvements.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates still blames Intel for the 286, and thinks that Intel are just a bunch of
lucky incompetents riding on Microsoft's success.
An Intel root kit will not require Windows software in any way whatsoever. This will free Intel to completely focus on CPU's and chip sets with related drivers. The code can be written in the most optimal manner, favoring the hardware.
It will also, incidently, provide a silent way to patch Intel bugs, should such ever occur.
Intel takes over the hardware plus drivers, and makes Windows into just another application.
All software drivers become Intel Certified instead of Microsoft Certified.
Apple gets a more fair chance, since the PC is now an Intel desktop.
Linux gets software driver support for all the latest hardware, as soon as Microsoft does, by
default.
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.