MADISON, WI -- 11/10/08 --
NovaShield, Inc., a leader in advanced
anti-malware technology, today announced the first commercial release of
NovaShield Anti-Malware version 2.5. Offered as a free public beta and
trial product for the past 6 months, NovaShield leverages leading academic
research and a 6-month public beta to deliver a customer-tested yet
radically new approach designed to detect, block, and remove sophisticated
and rapidly morphing malware. NovaShield 2.5 is uniquely architected to
help protect consumers against modern threats such as drive-by-downloads,
Trojans, keyloggers and rootkits, as well as traditional threats such as
viruses and worms.
The Problem with Traditional Technologies
For years, anti-virus solutions have focused on identifying malware by
using signatures as a tag to mark and quarantine known threats. However,
these solutions have been found by leading security academics and
researchers to be ineffective when faced with new emerging threats. Many
threats have not yet entered signature databases while others can mutate to
avoid signature matching.
A new breed of "behavior-based" anti-malware approaches have launched over
the past few years. These solutions focus on identifying malware behaviors,
as opposed to their signatures. But this first generation of behavior-based
solutions were marked by higher than average false positive rates, which
meant they identified harmless software as being malware.
"Today's hackers are targeting unsuspecting PC users by silently infecting
computers to send spam, perform web attacks and carry out other crimes,"
said John Mitchell, professor of computer science at Stanford University.
"Infected computers often show no symptoms of infection, making it
difficult to know you have got a problem. Anti-malware solutions need to be
innovative and need to be catching new threats."
Introducing a New Behavior-based Approach - Specification-based Protection
Based on breakthrough research at the University of Wisconsin's leading
computer science and security lab and with backing from the National
Science Foundation, NovaShield Anti-Malware approaches malware detection
through a break-through form of behavior-based threat detection called
specification-based monitoring.
Whereas traditional signature-based anti-virus solutions rely on hundreds
of thousands of policies to detect potential threats and require an average
19-day window of exposure before a new infection can be detected, removed
and blocked, NovaShield Anti-Malware's underlying specification-based
technology employs fewer than a dozen generalized policies that identify
malicious activities in real-time.
"Our approach is well designed to supplement the protection afforded by
current signature-scanning anti-virus programs by taking on what
traditional technologies cannot," said Dr. Somesh Jha, co-founder and chief
scientist at NovaShield. "This software is optimized to detect emerging
threats, stop rapidly-morphing malware that circumvents signatures and
firewalls, and effectively and thoroughly remove these threats."
"I have been very impressed by NovaShield 2.5 beta," said Paul Tatarsky, a
consultant in computer security and intrusion detection. "Signature-based
anti-malware products are increasingly coming up empty when dealing with
cutting edge malware -- NovaShield actually detects the system level
activities of the most malicious malware. In addition to providing a new
level of protection, NovaShield is the first behavior-based anti-malware
software to drastically reduce the number of false positives and it won't
drag down the performance of the computer it is protecting."
Pricing and Availability
Starting today, NovaShield Anti-Malware 2.5 is available for a free 15-day
trial and with a 1 or 2 year subscription. Introductory pricing for 1-year
single-user license is $19.95. Introductory subscription price for 2-year
single user license is $34.95. Family packs and 10-user small business
packs will also be available. The product is available for download from
www.novashield.com.
About NovaShield
NovaShield Inc. (www.NovaShield.com), founded by leading scientists at the
University of Wisconsin, develops technology to detect and eliminate the
next generation of malware threats on personal computers. Their
breakthrough approach rapidly identifies previously unseen malware by using
specification-based monitoring, a unique real-time approach for effectively
detecting looming threats. The NovaShield team has developed the most
advanced and accurate anti-malware product available to consumers and
businesses with the best-in-class ability to find new threats such as
drive-by-downloads, Trojans, botnets, keyloggers, and rootkits. Funded by
two competitive grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and
private investors, NovaShield is based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Media Contact:
Bret Clement
Page One PR (for NovaShield)
303-462-3057
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