Panda Antivirus Beta Draws on Cloud Servers

May 29, 2009 Software Review

Panda Security has released a public beta of a new cloud-based antivirus offering that the company says provides panda_by_mrquebec advanced protection against new and unknown viruses. Available for a free download, Panda Cloud Antivirus consists of a lightweight AV agent that resides on the user’s PC and connects in real time to the company’s cloud-based servers.

Juan Santana, Panda CEO, said that the goal is to offer consumers a truly install-and-forget solution that delivers the industry’s fastest protection against the newest malware with literally half the performing impact.

Panda noted that traditional AV products rely on locally installed technology to intercept files at different layers and scan them, a process he said negatively impacts PC performance through heavy use of the PC’s memory and CPU resources.

Bustmante said that Panda has redesigned the traditional interception techniques to work in a slightly different way to reduce the performance impact while focusing on the important aspects of protection when needed. He added that Panda Cloud Antivirus is the first antivirus based on this innovative protection model, which is based on two fundamental principles: Automatic malware detection and remediation from the cloud in real time, and the use of an ultra-lightweight thin-client agent.

He also said that collective intelligence is an online system that automates the malware protection cycle, collecting new samples, analyzing, categorizing, creating detection and disinfection routines, and delivering the protection to each node in the system. Tapping a global community of millions of users, the cloud-based system automatically identifies and classifies the new malware strains it finds in the more than 50,000 new data samples it receives each day.

Bustamante said that the ultimate goal is to release a commercial solution that helps “solve the malware problem by improving the user experience.