What is the ‘cloud’?
Cloud computing is a technology that allows services to be offered across the Internet. To this effect, the term ‘the cloud’ is used as a metaphor for the Internet in IT circles. Panda Endpoint Protection is served from the cloud, connecting to Collective Intelligence servers to protect your computer at all times, increasing the detection capacity and not interfering with the performance of the computer.

What is Collective Intelligence?
Collective Intelligence is a security platform created by Panda Security, offering high-level protection in real time, exponentially increasing the detection capacity of Panda Endpoint Protection.

How did detection work before Collective Intelligence?
Previously, laboratories received malware samples (new viruses, worms or Trojans) and technicians manually analyzed them before creating the corresponding vaccine. Once published across the Internet, users could download the vaccine to their signature files in order to ensure protection against the new threat.

This model ceased to become useful once Panda Security laboratories went from receiving 100 samples a day to 50,000. This would require a whole army of technicians working against the clock to analyze all the new examples of malware received.

How does detection with Collective Intelligence work?
Collective Intelligence has servers that classify and process all the data provided through the user community about detections on their computers. Panda Endpoint Protection sends requests to Collective Intelligence whenever it requires, ensuring maximum detection capacity without negatively affecting resource consumption on computers.

When new malware is detected on a computer in the user community, it sends the information to the Collective Intelligence servers in the cloud, automatically and anonymously. The information is processed by the servers, delivering the solution to all other users in the community in real time. Hence the name Collective Intelligence.

Given the current context of increasing amounts of malware, Collective Intelligence and services hosted in the cloud are an essential complement to traditional updates to successfully combat the enormous amount of threats in circulation.