Excellent comment via pcworld regarding Morro (kudos to avdude15):
Just what we need – a security mono-culture.
If Microsoft's free av product succeeds it will knock more than a few av developers out of the market and weaken the rest. This at a time when the more innovative players are investing heavily in the infrastructure and technology to deliver protection as a service. Cloud scanning, reputation systems, sand boxes are just a few of the new technologies being rolled out by many of the AV players. So Microsoft says, "let's give away a product and kill all that innovation". Whether or not Microsoft delivers a good product or not, all of our security will suffer.
To counter some press articles, Morro is not cloud-based. It simply sends detection statistics back to MS over the Internet (encrypted over SSL so you can't see what is being sent).
Also there's nothing innovative about Morro. It requires big signature updates and doesn't use cloud-scanning. Just the same old traditional and basic AV.
What's your take on MS Morro?
Panda Security specializes in the development of endpoint security products and is part of the WatchGuard portfolio of IT security solutions. Initially focused on the development of antivirus software, the company has since expanded its line of business to advanced cyber-security services with technology for preventing cyber-crime.
7 comments
it's going to be yet another product from ms which is going to be as average as bing has been. not revolutionary. just another player in the market. and would it work on windows 2000 or windows 98? unlikely.
Panda looks scared. MS isn’t even trying to compete with you. It’s offering a minimal security solution that other vendors can easily compete with. Just look at AVG and the like. They give free minimal security and allow the customer to pay if they want more. Ideally, Windows should not be vulnerable at all. Guess what that would do to the entire security software industry? You wouldn’t let that happen though. Still if you feel threatened, why not try your hand at the Mac, Linux of iPhone platform? Oh that’s right! You don’t have a market there whatsoever. MS is the reason you earn your bread & butter; best not bite the hand that feeds you.
As for sushubh, would you rather have a Google monopoly in search? Bing will get better over time, although it is almost as good as Google in most cases, and better in a few scenarios. And Windows 2000 is a 10-yr old unsupported OS. Get with the times. Or ask Apple if they support Mac OS 9. Won’t bother mentioning 98 anymore.
it will make people that otherwise wouldn’t be protect because don’t want to wast money to be protect.
It will detect the most important malware and possible in short term even more that most anti-malware products detect… it’s Microsoft, they can wast many millions of dollars to make sure they are in cutting edged… and if they want they will be in the cutting edged even with cloth computing if they think it’s necessary… other products don’t have cloud computing and are doing a grate job… even better than some others with cloud computing… it’s a question of good heuristics and having many, many good engineers.
@lituus, it’s not an issue of Windows and the fact that it’s not (and will never be) fully secure. Whatever OS is most widely used will always be the one that is most attacked. It doesn’t matter if its Windows, Mac, Linux or whatever. The problem here is that Morro will not make Windows OS more secure than a Windows OS + advanced anti-malware solution, as it is a basic, traditional antivirus.
@joao, you mention 2 things:
– Making people protected who don’t have money. MS uses this argument saying Morro will help make people in developing countries more secure. Yet at the same time Morro only installs on valid copies of Microsoft, while these developing countries have >90% piracy rate.
– Cutting edge. Morro is simple traditional signature scanning. No behavioral analysis, no advanced heuristics, no other type of proactive technologies. Yes I agree they have more dollars to make cutting edge, but the fact is that they have done the contrary (released something basic technology-wise).
Existence of Morro antivirus shouldn’t bother either ways.A new player in security market is always welcome.We need cleaner and happy internet world.As these days web world is webbed by cyber criminals so whether its Smaller player or bigger one like MS,its who delivers the better solution that matters.Remember MS too was a small player almost non existent few decades back when apple was the sole OS in computer world.MS just out grew apple.So why be threatened by launch of Morro?Its still too early to say whether it will be cloud based or some other new tech based…Its time to tell.
i think this is very good and simple antivirus, without any abra-kadabra options.
I am using Threatfire (cloud/behaviour based) and Panda Cloud Beta for my antivirus protection. When Morro is released, I will try adding it. If they do not conflict and do not hog resources, then that is 3 different levels of protection. The cyber crooks are using every tool at their disposal and we should, too. Morro is old technology and will not kill the antivirus market. But they do add that extra layer of protection. I have been reading good things. High levels of detection and low resource usage. I hope it will prove to be a very good secondary system like ThreatFire. Time will tell but definately not revolutionary or industry threatening.