NEWS An executive of Microsoft in France divulged on Wednesday some of the software maker's plans for its highly anticipated entry into the antivirus software market.
A standalone antivirus product will be built from tools the company inherited through its 2003 acquisitions of GeCad and Pelican Software, according to a report published in silicon.com sister publication ZDNet France, citing the technical head of Microsoft's security project in that country, Nicolas Mirail.
Microsoft representatives in the US refused to comment on functional elements or a potential production time frame for the antivirus package.
However, Mirail said the Microsoft antivirus software will utilise two different means of detecting destructive files, the first of which will reference a regularly updated list of known viruses to check for potential infections. The second antivirus tool will analyse computer systems to assess whether they have been hit by a virus in the past and attempt to give end users an idea of how at risk their computers might be for future problems.
The executive indicated that the antivirus package will not come with firewall security software but said a firewall would be built into the company's Windows XP operating system when Microsoft delivers its Service Pack 2 update. Mirail said the product would work with both Windows XP and the Longhorn release of Windows.
Microsoft representatives denied that Mirail's comments released previously unknown details but the company has offered little information publicly about its antivirus plans. Microsoft has been rumoured to be seeking a high-profile acquisition in that arena, and security specialist Network Associates was said to be on the company's radar. Earlier this month, another European security executive at Microsoft said the company's antivirus plans remain in their early stages, including the integration of the products it has amassed via acquisition.
When Microsoft purchased GeCad, which is based in Bucharest, Romania, it positioned the acquisition as the next step in its Trustworthy Computing initiative, a move aimed at securing what Microsoft estimates are the nearly two-thirds of Windows users who don't have up-to-date antivirus software on their computers. The company said at that time that it might launch a paid-subscription service for Windows users.
The latest virus to wreak havoc on the internet was MyDoom.M, a new variant of the prolific worm, which came to life Monday and quickly snarled Google and other search sites. Though the latest version of MyDoom did not target Microsoft products specifically, as many other viruses have, it hosted an ancillary, or 'backdoor', infection programmed to launch a denial-of-service attack on the software maker's website.
Matt Hines writes for CNET News.com.
Comments
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1. anonymous
If Microsoft's offering is based on Pelican software? Does that mean there will be a big bill attached?
2. Dom
The question is: Would you trust an MS antivirus given their sloppy coding track record?
Personally, it is definity no.
Current antiviruses are doing a good job at mitigating the damages caused by MS poorly designing their OSes.
Therefore I wouln't want to make precarious situation worth.
3. Jon
I kind of agree with Dom.
If the product was written correctly from day 1, it wouldn't need a bolt on virus package.
Why not just write better code and remove the virus business altogether?
4. Portle
When Microsoft have fixed the holes in their operating systems, done away with the blue screen of death and instituted something better than reboot to fix everything else then, and only then should they start out in other fields.
We have some excellent products and services in the marketplace already. So, Microsoft, leave this to the experts and get your own house in order and if you need any help with your operating system go read Knuth!
5. Mark M
Er, DOM and Co, AV software is updated much more frequently than MS software. + if you do get caught with a virus i've experianced first hand that the different vendors of AV software can detect differing viruses, even when one says clean, two says clean, three... There will never be a be all and end all AV solution.
6. anonymous
So Dom and Jon, there's no virus's for unix and linux eh... so well written from day 1 that they dont exist eh... i don't think so...there will always be exploits for OS's. MS is so well hated that all the effort goes into to writing malicious code against them plus it's the biggest target of course..MS bashing is soooooo tiresome...boring...
7. John C
I couldn't agree more. If unix or linux had 90% of the market share we would soon be in a situation where they are being bashed.
I'm an MS developer and was just reading an article on here slating the security holes in Oracle, while I can obviously agree that Oracle is a tremendous product, it puts a big hole in their "unbreakable" slogan...