MS to Offer Antivirus Software

[CXGJarrod]

From http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59196,00.html

SEATTLE -- Microsoft said Tuesday it will acquire antivirus technology from a Romanian software company and develop its own antivirus product, stepping into a market it has long ceded to others specializing in software security.

Microsoft signed an agreement to buy the intellectual property and technology assets of antivirus software and consulting firm GeCAD Software of Bucharest for an undisclosed amount. Some of the company's software developers will join Microsoft, but details haven't been finalized, said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft's security business unit.

Microsoft plans to release its own antivirus product at some unspecified date, but has not decided whether basic antivirus technology will be bundled into its Windows operating system, Nash said.

Would you guys buy it? Do you think this might be another "Vaporware" product?

Jarrod

[the_JinX]

I would say it would be just as good as the WinXP firewall but that's a cheap excuse..

I won't judge before I try and hey atleast they are not trying to reinvent the wheel, they just buy some Romanian company and name it Microsoft AV..

What's in a name..

but it's not for me..

@ work we have a good AV deal with a major company and @ home my GF has FREEAVG on her win partition..

[jaguar291]

Another attempt to make Billy's pockets a little more fatter. I wouldn't buy/use it if it didn't come with Windows (different story if it did) and I highly doubt that it would be any competetion to the better known AV companies (Norton, etc.) if it is sold separately.

[LAME JOKE]
Does it detect Windows?
[/LAME JOKE]

[AviS187]

You have to look at it from the M$ point of view:
"Hmmm... we are already in the operating systems, programming languages and environments, word processing, spreadsheets, database management, and browser markets. What other areas can we move into and use our massive corporate power to dominate illegitimately?"

[NeuTron]

IMHO, there is no way that Microsoft will make a better prodict than Norton, McAffee or Dr. Soloman and it is purely about greed. Bill ****in Gates wants Microsoft to be a synonym for "computer". I wish they would just settle for 90% of the market and leave the other ten for us. God I hate Microsoft.

[tolstoy]

They already have an AV software, its called windows update. :p Talk about total crap--they sell a defective, completely exploitable product, then they sell you the stuff to protect and fix it. It's like your automotive dealer charging you to pay for fixes to a car they put on recall. Why don't they just concentrate on writing better code.

[tonybradley]

It seems an odd move given that they just entered into an agreement with McAfee and Trend Micro to form the Virus Information Alliance.

I wonder if they're goal is truly to release a competing product, or if they just wanted to buy the intellectual property to try and get some AV intelligence on their engineering teams so that they can build products less prone to virus exploitation in the first place?

In the end, I would agree that if they go forward and release their own product that it won't compare with some of the existing products that make up the bedrock of AV software- McAfee, Norton, Trend, etc. It would be one thing if they bought McAfee, but they didn't even buy a top 5 product so I don't think they are going to roll out a top 5 product.

That said, the home market are push-button drones. They don't know about security and most don't want to know about security. They want to use their computer like they use their VCR and their microwave. They don't want to check for patches and AV updates every week and most wouldn't know how. SO , if Microsoft can bundle even rudimentary AV into Windows for the home market and set everything to auto-update- patches and AV definitions- the world would be better for it even if the AV is second rate.

If everyone surfed AO and other security boards, and everyone patched their OS and applications weekly, and everyone kept their AV up to date, and everyone configured their firewall properly maybe this wouldn't be the case, but since so many don't and they make up the majority of the people who open attachments called nudepictures.exe from emails berating the war on Iraq in broken English claiming to be from support@microsoft.com it is safe to say that even spoon-fed mediocre security is better than no security at all.

[jinxy]

I have to agree with Tonybradley here. Most people who bye a car in this country(UK) don't no how to top up the oil level or check for tyre ware. Never mind their big ends on there way out.

The same goes for Pc users and a Pc is a fraction of the cost of a new car.
Most people just want to by a Pc and use it But in the same way not noing you have low oil in your car can end up costing you a fortune to replace an engine. Not noing you are infected with a virus, trojan etc can end up costing you a fortune aswell.

The government in the UK are thinking of making people learn the basics of car maintenance to pass there driving test. Perhaps the same should be true of the Pc.

The car manufacturers argument against this is they have made more sophsticated systems that let a car driver no when the enginge is low on oil etc so the user doesn't have to check.

So it makes sence to me to bundle AV and firewall software into an operating system.

[NullDevice]

that too will be integrated into windows.............as usual

[cwk9]

Guess will have to wait and see. Who knows maybe a built in AV would do to norton what internet explorer did to netscape.

Windows use to come with a virus scanner way back in windows 3.1.

[dopeydadwarf]

Oh good yet another program introduced by Microsoft that will proably be full of holes. I can see it now. Microsoft released a patch today for there AV software. While you are downloading updates to this new AV you are subject to attacks that allow the attacker "full control" of the pc in question.

Or, new virus found in the wild today, it apparently infects Microsofts new AV software and effectivley disables it, the infection is followed by a message from the writter delivered via the classic blue screen of death.

"Your AV has caused an illegal operation."

HEHEHHE

[ZomBieMann77]

MS did have a primitive wirus scanner that shiped with one of the dos versions i think. It could have been windows 3.1 but i want to say it was dos. And if i remeber corectly it didnt work worth a damn. Why should we think the new one would be any difrent?

[tonybradley]

Playing devil's advocate to my own post- having the hordes of security-ignorant Best Buy package deal computer drones using the Windows firewall and Windows AV could be a bad thing as well.

It would be nice that they would have some protection and that the protection could be automatically updated, but the downside is that if the products truly were not sufficient to provide real security it will provide a false sense of security.

What we could end up with are hordes of microwave, push-button drones who THINK they are secure because they know they have some firewall and AV software installed. They won't go further to learn or do more and will believe that Big Brother (Microsoft) has got their back with the automatic updates.

It seems that whether or not this is a good thing is semi-dependent on the overall quality of the products they bundle. It would be nice to protect the masses who just know how to use their computer like a car or a microwave, but not if that protection is half-assed and gives them a false sense of security.

Just my $.02 in response to my other $.02 :-)

[lord_darkside_x]

well to the computer savvy this we'll be a joke. those of us who care about security and have a distrust for some of the quality of microsoft will not buy it. (i know i will be the first on my block to decide to not own it.)

HOWEVER... i think that this product will do exceptionally well amongst the half knowledgable and lower group of computer users. to most of these people the only thing they know is they are supposed to have some sort of av. they are not quite sure how it works, many don't even know why they need it so to them one is as good as another. but you throw a name like microsoft on it and they will scarf it up. the common thought will be "microsoft... they make my windows program... and i use there office program... they must be good and trustworthy as well... why not buy it"

[bballad]

There has been an AV shiped with MS for a long time...but it hasn't been updated in 10 years...this will proably go the same road. The company they bought is unfortunate though as they made one of the few Linux based AV..in fact this companies windows AV was an after thaught and althouth they had great virus detection capabilities the user interface left a lot to be desired.

My guess is MS bought them to
1.) get rid of a tool that was helping Linux.
2.) get their hands on Linux virus source code.

But I am cynical like that.

[thehorse13]

bballad,

Yeah man, I also noticed that this company was one of the only places making a decent Linux AV scanner. I too, wonder what the evil empire has planned for this functionality.

One thing they did do right is purchase an AV company instead of making some hokey tiger team at MS to go at it alone. Also, I wonder how they will integrate DAT file updates? Through WindowsUpdate? I sure hope they are better than the driver updates. So far I got two duds from their awful third party driver update section - a yamaha sound card driver and an integrated intel pro 10/100.

[Agent_Steal]

You cant really blame MS for trying again. It's not just MS's fault that their software has a lot of holes.. Customers have to start taking the blame since a lot of people like convinience. Most people dont care how secure their computers are. Anyways people always want more features in their products. Which means more insecure code and more problems. But people tend to just point their fingers at companies when something goes wrong. I bet that if Apple had taken the deal offer to them in the first place by IBM. And if the Mac OS was the dominating platform people would be whining about how Mac sucks here sucks there..
Hey if you dont like a specific software company then dont use it. If someone were to tell you to jump of a cliff would you??
If you want your computer to be secure well then read and learn how to do it .. Instead of bitching and whining all the time... Like the majority of people do . .
As for an MS AV hummm sounds very interesting ... Cant say you wont like it until you try it..

[GrApHiCTrOn]

Wow, it seams that Microsoft whants to expand its monopoly to other branches, if they continue getting greedy. maybe they would whant to get more in to hardware also. IMAGIN Microsoft HDD that you have to register before installing windows to gey your activation key to format your drive. And that the drive has a life expenctanci of 3 years(because almost every 3 years MS realeases a new OS)

Just to think about that i'm getting sick

LOL
MS wants to OWN YOU ! ! ! :O
LOL

[ghostintheruins]

I'm sorry to say that I do not agree with you, at least about the quality of that antivirus... I've been using it for a while now and it did work good enough for my necesities...

I don't know what MS is going to do with it and I wonder how it will go.