Intel Enters Anti-Virus Market

Jack writes "ITO holds a story on latest Intel investment: "Intel is branching into anti-virus security with a $16 million investment in Czech anti-virus software vendor Grisoft. Grisoft's AVG anti-virus is used on more than 25 million computers worldwide, according to the company."

More Free Software Disappearing?

[PipOC]

Does this mean that they're no longer going to release AVG updates?

Crap.

[spauldo]

I hope there remains a free version of AVG. That's what I install on the few windows machines I maintain for people. It's a lot easier to convince people to run antivirus software when they don't have to pay for it.

Intel???

[xiaomonkey]

Any clue on why this might be a good strategic move for Intel?

I mean, it seems a bit random in that it's miles away from their 'core competencies' in chip design/manufacturing.

Re:Antivirus CPU

[Dhalphir]

Built in hardware Antivirus? An interesting thought... Actually...even more interesting now that I think about it. It'd be fairly difficult, I imagine, for a virus, if it got in, to disable or cripple a hardware Antivirus as opposed to a software one like Norton or McAfee.

Their reputation is being tarnished.

[CyricZ]

Windows is very much associated with Intel (ie. the term "Wintel" systems, for instance). Each time a virus, worm, etc., damages or destroys a massive number of Windows systems, Intel ends up looking very bad. In general, Intel PCs are known to be susceptible to malicious software, even though that is mainly due to the widespread use of Windows, and not directly related to the Intel chips.

So it greatly benefits them to improve the image of their chips, security-wise. This is something that others should be looking into as well. The PHP developers, while they do not develop hardware, do develop a very similar product. Both an Intel CPU and the PHP interpreter provide an instruction execution environment. As with nearly any such system, abuse is possible. That is why the PHP developers should follow Intel's lead, and create solutions that will help prevent third-party scripts from running amok, and thus tarnishing PHP's reputation.

Re:Their reputation is being tarnished.

[commo1]

I..... don't agree. Viruses are not generally written in machine or machine-specific code, they do the same as most Windows software does: call APIs that have flaws in them because MS does not write them robustly enough nor is there peer review to point out flaws that an originating team optimizing for flawless interoperability with another team's APIs and other code. In essence, open-source development is so sucessful in a security sense because such review (ie: how could a virus exploit this?) has already taken place in the development process in the wild.

A virus written for a Windows XP machine has at least a 90% chance of hitting a similarly protected Alpha running XP (OK, OK, let the flames begin....). Does the above comment infer that when Mac OS moves to i386 it will be more suceptible? This may be the case, for one or both of two reasons: 1) by then the focus will have moved from MS Windows attacks to Mac OS attacks because of market penetration, plus the added bonus of being a novelty like Windows virii have become. 2) the virus developers have learned tricks for machine calls and stops only pertinent to i386s; see the missing 10%.

Re:You shouldn't need anti-virus software.

[dotwaffle]

Just because you run Linux/BSD doesn't mean you don't need an anti-virus! Sure, the risks are minimal, but virii do occur on those platforms!

ClamAV is free, and at all good apt repositories - go install ;)

Re:Kudos to Intel.

[springbox]

It's just like making hardware with built in AV software. The idea to me seems absolutely redicilous. Why does the industry need to revolve around fixing Microsoft's problems? Virus scanners are primarily (if not totally) geared towards Windows, right?

Intel makes a general purpose CPU, and it works just fine. They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user. Similiarly, the PHP developers shouldn't be bothered to fix the (common?) mistakes made by hobbyists or otherwise.

Re:Worked for Microsoft... Let's see how Intel han

[krappie]

Microsoft seems to have a good strong competative pattern that they've been doing. I don't know if Intel can compete. Microsoft's pattern is:

1. Create an Operating System
2. Look at what software is successful and making money on that Operating System.
3. Create Microsoft version of same software
4. Integrate said software into the OS and use Windows leverage to force OEM's and manufacturers to bundle preinstalled on most computers.

So far, this has pretty much worked and usually kills whatever piece of software was successful on Windows. I think its about to happen with antivirus software. I dont know if Intel or the other antivirus companies can compete with this. What do you think?

Re:LanDesk

[Wiseleo]

Yep I remember Landesk 6.0 very fondly :-)

That's what makes Symantec Antivirus (and not consumer Norton brand nonsense) so good.

Time to build up another Antivirus and sell it off again for Intel?

AVG Free Edition...

[oskard]

Was a beacon of hope in the freeware = spyware world. Guess we're gonna kiss that one goodbye too :\

Re:Kudos to Intel.

[UserChrisCanter4]

Why does the industry need to revolve around fixing Microsoft's problems?

snip

They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user.

Why? Cash!

You're right, Intel shouldn't be responsible for fixing Microsoft's problems. I'm certain they don't feel that way. Fixing Microsoft's problems, though, is worth millions of dollars. Assuming Intel is looking to build an anti-virus system at the CPU or chipset level (pure conjecture, but let's just assume), they wouldn't be doing it because they feel a responsibility to do so. Rather, they'd be looking for a competitive advantage over AMD, and another reason for customers to ditch their perfectly good (but three year-old) 2.0 Ghz Pentium 4.

Of course, I'm not even sure how such a hardware anti-virus would work, other than something similar to the NX system on the x86-64 chips. If such a beast does rear its head, though, rest assured that it won't be because someone felt a moral responsibility to fix some Microsoft bugs.

Re:More Free Software Disappearing?

[MBGMorden]

ClamAV isn't really a replacement for AVG or other Desktop virus scanners. The ClamAV engine could be adapted to the task with a suitable wrapper app, but as it is it's gear more towards scheduled scans.

On the other hand, FreeBSD mail gateway that I run at work where ClamAV works beautifully. It's all about using the right tool ;).

Re:Antivirus CPU

[drsmithy]

It would be nice, however, if they would actually perform virus scans at given times, on given days, in the background. I don't think it would be too difficult or too much to ask for this to happen.

I think it would be quite difficult, from a practical perspective - not to mention a frighteningly massive security hole - for your BIOS was able to access every filesystem on your machine.

I think you'll also find that once the [protected mode] OS has booted, the BIOS is never used again anyway.

Re:More Free Software Disappearing?

[Tim C]

Why would a cash injection stop them from releasing stuff for free? Surely they'd be more likely to go completely pay-for if they were running out of money...

Re:Intel???

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a part if Intel's greater "platformization" of their company. Rather than focusing on solely increasing cpu performance (because they're having trouble with that and most customers have more important needs) they are taking a user centric view of computing. As such there is a greater emphasis on features, power consumption and the system as a whole within Intel. If you notice Intel seems to be doing a sting of major software inititives recently including:
1. Anti Virus
2. XML Servers
3. Digital Movies

Intel is no-longer viewing itself as cpu company, but as a provider of technology platforms and what those platforms can deliver.

Gordon Moore views this as the most important shift Intel has every made, even greater than the shift from memory to cpu company.

 

Re:You shouldn't need anti-virus software.

[Anonymous Coward]

> A file is created WITHOUT execution permissions, on *nix platforms. How is the virus going to execute and spread, tell me...

Scripts can be executed without the execute bit.

Besides, the 'virus' (really trojan or worm) author has already exploited one or more holes to get the thing on a system. You really think the lack of an execute bit is going to be an insurmountable obstacle?

The biggest protection *nix has against viruses it's is total unpopularity.