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Microsoft To Offer Free Anti-Virus Software

Posted by kdawson on from the another-industry-done-gone dept.

Dynamoo writes "The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is ... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"

3 of 448 comments (clear)

  1. re Hard to decide ... by jelizondo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it comes free with the OS it will drive away competitors because Joe-sixpack is
    not going to spend any money to replace something he got for free, even if it sucks.

    On the other hand, if any feature needs to be part of the OS is precisely a form of
    protection against malware.

    Come to think of it, if MS does a bad job of protecting PCs and drives away
    competition on virus protection, maybe the company will finally implode and let other OSes
    get a greater market-share.

    --
    Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
    1. Re:re Hard to decide ... by dnoyeb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its illogical. How can you produce a product that attacks things attempting to exploit your holes when you have the ability to patch the holes?

      If they sold it, it would be a conflict of interest.

    2. Re:re Hard to decide ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It is much worse... I got a trojan on my system, a Net Devil, roll-your-own type. Before I went to uninstall it, I debugged it and got the ICQ account details. I used the credentials to log into the account and changed the password. I watched as the victim IP addresses poured in! To investigate, I downloaded the client half of Net Devil and connected to a few victims. Total access!

      Screen capture, key logger, executable, download, upload, you name it! It had a feature to send popup messages that I used to tell the victim they had a virus and they should take steps immediately to remove it. Some would unplug their computers immediately, while others would just click OK and keep going. I would send another message like "No really! You have a virus!" and they still just pressed OK and just kept typing their IM. Of course, it usually got their attention when I opened 30 message dialogs in a row. The most effective way I got their attention was to turn their graphics upside-down and open their CD/DVD tray :) Nothing like a ghost in the machine to wake them up.

      • Other variations:
      • launch winamp and crank up the volume
      • same, but use a pr0n clip from their stash
      • (most sinister) activating their webcam
      • (silent, yet dreadful) the keylogger

      It had an option to remove the trojan from the host, so I cleaned up a few, but the IP addresses kept flowing in worldwide (esp. France?) and it was rather depressing trying to help users that pretty much ignored anything but the blatant scare tactics.