Cyberhawk (new security app) public beta....

[Ratbag]

Cyberhawk is a program I've been keeping an eye on for a while and its just gone into public beta phase. It certainly makes some bold claims, and if its claims are to be believed it should be downloaded and deployed by all and sundry:

Cyberhawk is extraordinary security software for the average consumer: easy to install, painless to use, and immediately effective against today's computer security threats. Designed for people who don't have the time or technical expertise necessary to tackle the tough job of PC security, Cyberhawk features innovative real-time technology that provides a superior alternative to traditional hard-to-use security programs. Viruses, worms, trojans, hackers, rootkits, spyware—Cyberhawk stops them all.

Traditional security software like antivirus and anti-spyware offer strictly reactive protection. They can only protect you from a new threat after it has been discovered and new signatures to protect against it are developed, tested, and then released for download. Cyberhawk does not rely on signatures to protect you; instead, it proactively shuts down any activity or behavior that might compromise the security of a PC. You are always protected, no matter how new the threat.

Its the kind of spiel that sparks distrust but Novatix are a fairly reputable lot. Anyway, I've downloaded it and I'm about to test it alongside (or maybe instead of NOD). Just thought others may be interested too!

 

[NathanE]

The funny thing is... in order to "stop" root kits you have to implement a root kit yourself. This software is nothing new. There are several other "Kernel firewalls", as one vendor calls them, that have been on the market for a year or two. Ghost Security make one. As do DiamondCS.

Personally I wouldn't let one touch my system. They operate at such a low level in the system that the slightest bug in their code could give spurious BSODs, or worse, data integrity sacrifices. They all have a performance hit too.

By the time this level of protection is required, Vista will be out and approaching market acceptance. On a Vista system, nobody runs as Administrator, this alone provides a "natural" protection against most types of virii and most certainly all rootkits. Since you cannot install any kernel mode driver/software without Admin. rights.

Although they may market their product as being "the future" of malware protection. The irony is that Microsoft prevents these types of products being installed on their X64 OSes (through NT X64's "PatchGuard" technology.) Including Windows XP X64, Vista X64 and Server 2003 X64. So really, they aren't "the future" at all I actually feel quite sorry for that Novatix company. It's clear they are a new company and their entire business plan is focused around that "Cyberhawk" pilot product. If only they'd keep up with what's on the horizon from Microsoft, eh!