McAfee Artemis Claims Protection Online, On-the-Fly

Seems like McAfee has created a new Internet-based service to provide active protection on the fly when a PC gets hit by malicious computer code. "[Artemis] is a lot faster than traditional methodologies and it closes the gap between when a piece of malware is written, discovered, analyzed and protected against ... Artemis is available at no charge as part of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise or McAfee Total Protection Service for small and medium-sized businesses. Artemis is also available for McAfee's consumer products, where the functionality is called Active Protection."

Comments

ugh.

[X_Bones]

This advertisement^Warticle looks like it was written by some marketing exec's high-school kid. It's chock full of clumsy grammar and useless buzzwords, yet somehow almost completely content-free. Can someone please explain to me again why this belongs on the front page?

Big Brother gets to examine all your files

[Animats]

Here's McAfee's explanation of how it works:

1. A user receives a file that the scan agent deems suspicious (for example, an encrypted or packed file) and for which there is no signature in the local .DAT database.
2. Using McAfee Artemis Technology, the agent sends a fingerprint of the file for instant lookup to the comprehensive database at McAfee Avert® Labs.
3. In less than a second, if the fingerprint is identified as known malware, an appropriate response is sent to the user to block or quarantine the file.

In other words, every time you download a binary file, McAfee HQ knows about it and logs it. Was this dreamed up by the RIAA, the NSA, or the anti-child-porno people?

Flawed methodology

[mcrbids]

Using anti-virus to "protect" your computer is like trying to avoid collisions by studying your rear-view mirror. By definition, it only "catches" compromises AFTER THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL.

Then, we have to trust that:

1) The compromise is one of the known viruses, or falls into the realm of "suspsicious activity".

2) The compromise was successfully noticed.

3) All aspects of the virus are known and can be removed.

4) You (the end user) have sufficient system permissions to remove the virus.

5) You (the end user) have all updates applied.

The whole system is woefully fragile and ineffective. Most estimates today seldom put A/V effectiveness above 50% effective, despite the considerable resources consumed by the software. It may be better than poking yourself with a sharp stick, but not by much!

And here's a good example of this: My kids' computer. It's an Athlon XP 3400 with a GB of RAM and an 80 GB HDD. I got sick of reloading the !@#@$ computer every 3 months when it got all horked with god-knows-what so I did the nasty, this time.

I installed ALL O/S patches while hooked up to a private network. I installed AVG antivirus. I let the kids only use the computer as the most limited user available: guest. I installed FF and made it the default browser, along with Open Office and a few legal games. (not warez!) I set WinXP to self-update every single day, and not ask about it. The Windows firewall was on, and the computer is on a NAT network, connected to another highly firewalled DMZ.

Despite all this hassle and inconvenience, the system is STILL behaving rather poorly, 6 months later. Bought me 3 months, but only three more.

Compare/contrast with the Mac. Same kids. Same amount of usage. Same type of usage for the same purposes. Blogging, MySpace, games, homework. All else the same, but I never bothered with antivirus. Yet it works fine! No bogging down. No strange behavior. Same thing with my Linux laptop, which after some 10 years is still using the same /home partition.

Good security isn't something you "band aid", it's something you design from the beginning.

Re:This is why you read the fine print...

[arth1]

But a fingerprint used as a unique identifier isn't safe. What's the guarantee that MacAffee won't keep rainbow tables of everything that has turned out to not be viruses, but someone else might find interesting?

What stops e.g. the government or MPAA (but I repeat myself) from demanding to be told of everyone who have files matching a certain fingerprint? The first justification for this might be child porn. How about fingerprinting all known child porn images, and have the AV software notify the servers whenever there is a match? Undoubtedly that will be very effective! No pesky 4th amendment considerations either!
Then, once it's used for that purpose, how about fingerprinting word documents describing how to make pipe bombs? Undoubtedly useful. And how about the communist manifesto? And, since it works against browser caches too, why not check who has browsed a certain page?

I'm sorry, but I see a lot of problems with this.