Boehrsi.de - IT und Gaming Blog

In cooperation with Bitdefender today your questions regarding antivirus software solutions will be answered. I’m quite happy about your participations (in german) and also about the reply by Bitdefender. This news will be released in english and also in german. The reason for this is the greater range of news, published in multiple languages. And now it’s time for the questions and answers in the bottom part of this news. Feel free to comment at the bottom of the news.

Question: Do you have your own “hackers” who try to infect your computer or do you react “only” to new viruses?

Answer: We do have our own research teams that look into vulnerabilities in order to stay one step ahead of cyber-criminals. The potential vulnerabilities we find are responsibly disclosed to vulnerable vendors and we also assist them during the patching process.

Question: Do you have common projects with the competition when it comes to major threats?

Answer: We do cooperate at an international level with other anti-malware vendors via sample and intelligence exchange programs.

Question: What is the worst malware that you have ever found?

Answer: This is actually a very difficult question to cover in so few words. When it comes to complexity, Flamer is probably still the king of cyber-warfare. At the same time, a less complex virus that becomes widely spread (such as Zeus) can equally impact home users. At the end of the day, it’s not the complexity that matters, but rather how much damage it has inflicted to victims, and this is extremely difficult to assess.

Question: How is the antivirus program protected from attacks or deactivation?

Answer: We are using a proprietary Bitdefender technology to protect the antivirus from deactivation, file injection or other types of attacks.

Question: Has the free antivirus scanner the same high detection rate?

Answer: Yes, all the Bitdefender antivirus solutions use the same scanning technologies and can detect the same threats. The only difference between our products is the number of additional features (other than detection) that they pack.

Question: How relevant do you think are antivirus solutions on mobile devices?

Answer: Mobile security solutions are becoming increasingly necessary as Android threats are becoming more and more prevalent. And it’s not only applications installed outside of the Play Store that can negatively impact the user, but also aggressive malware that may be downloaded from official stores. Bitdefender Mobile Security for instance packs more than an antivirus: it has a privacy advisor, an antitheft module and many other goodies that are essential for any Android user.

Question: How important is still the signature based detection and how you see the development there?

Answer: Signature-based detection has been decreasingly effective in today’s threat landscape. It is still maintained in most antivirus products, but the most important detection technologies are now based on behavior and heuristics.

Question: When a new virus, etc. is discovered, how long does it take to be passed on to the users generally to the corresponding database updates?

Answer: Database updates are also a thing of the past. Cloud-based technologies make it easier now to deliver threat intelligence to users within minutes since the threat has been initially spotted.

Question: If one looks at usability, security and performance, which of these points has the greatest relevance in the development?

Answer: Security should still be the most important aspect when choosing an antivirus. It only takes one missed threat to lose your online identity, so detection rate is paramount. Of course, the more usable and resource-effective an antivirus solution is, the better the customer feedback. We are continuously optimizing our products to minimize the impact on the system and to let the user interact with the product in a comprehensive manner.

Question: How important are customers’ needs and how do you ask for feedback?

Answer: The customer’s needs are critical. We are there to protect and cater to them. Customer input can be sent either via e-mail or by directly engaging with us via social media channels.

Question: What do you think about the independent testing institutes such as AVTest or AV-Comparatives? How much can they be influenced in favor of a particular software?

Answer: They can’t be influenced. This is why they are called independent testing organizations. They have a very thorough and impartial testing procedure on which they have built their reputation.