Prevention

Malware Prevention Software – The software listed below was personally tested by me and performed exceedingly well in preventing known and unknown malware infections (for video proof see youtube.com/mrizos)

You’ll notice that I have not included traditional signature based anti-virus in the list below…that was intentional.

Signature based anti-virus is far too overwhelmed by the vast amounts of malware being being released every second.  Therefore, I have decided not to promote it as a means of malware prevention.

DefenseWall

Product Type = Sandboxing

Product Cost = $29.99 (one time fee)

Product Description = DefenseWall separates applications into 2 groups.  Trusted and Untrusted.

Untrusted applications (and the files they download) cannot modify critical system files and folders (like personal documents, the Windows Folder and the Registry hives).  Thus, untrusted files (malicious files) downloaded by untrusted applications are essentially non-functional and can be removed with extreme ease.

DefenseWall is absolutley awesome for going anywhere on the internet and never having to worry about malicious drive-by downloads or accidental malware installs.

DefenseWall Highlights:

• 99.99% Malware Prevention Ratio.
• Almost NO popup alerts.
• Extemely low memory requirements (4.8 MB or RAM on my computer).
• Malware removal from the sandbox is a so simple.
• Amazing support (right from the developer).
• It’s cheap and it’s NOT a yearly fee.
• Does not require signature updates like traditional antivirus.
• Fully customizable: Create and modify your own trusted and untrusted program groups.
• It’s what protects my home PC’s.

Download A Fully Functional Demo Now!

Comodo Internet Security (Defense+)

Product Type = Firewall, Antivirus, HIPS

Product Cost = FREE

Product Description = Comodo Internet Security features an impressive set of anti-malware technologies such as: 

• Antivirus.
• Application Firewall.
• HIPS/Behavior Blocker (Defense+).
• Whitelist of safe applications (reduces popup questions).
• Multiple operating modes for the paranoid user in you.

Comodo Internet Security is currently free and is honestly one of the best internet security packages available.

Personally I love Comodo’s Defense+ module.  Defense+ will alert me if anything changes (such as files being modified or created) in my registry or windows folder (or any other folder I specify).  Essentially this means that NOTHING gets created without my explicit permission!  Can you say WOW!!!

Comodo’s firewall and Defense+ module are only as good as the user behind them.  Answer only one question incorrectly and you could be exposing yourself to a nasty infection.  If you’re not sure on how to answer a particular firewall or defense+ question then just deny.  Once you’ve denied that possible threat you can do your research and see if it’s truly a malicious threat or just something benign.

Download Comodo Internet Security

Drive Sentry

Product Type = HIPS, On-Demand Malware Scanner

Product Cost = Free for manual updates (called trickle updates), $20.00 for automatic trickle updates

Product Description =  Drive Sentry is a HIPS based Anti-Malware product with an on demand scanner that scans for 1 million plus pieces of malware.

Drive Sentry protects critical parts of your OS (like the windows directory and registry hives) from being modified by unauthorized processes (malware) without your explicit permission (in the form of a popup).

Drive Sentry features an amazing database of whitelisted applications (applications that have been certified as safe) which means you won’t be overwhelmed with those annoying popups asking you if it’s OK to run a particular application.

Here are a few of the most important Drive Sentry features:

• whitelist containing thousands of safe applications (and hundreds being added daily).
• blacklist of over 1million known malicious “fingerprints”.
• protects critical folders and registry hives from being modified without explicit permission from you.  This is by far the most powerful feature of DriveSentry.
• Online Advisor Community Statistics – what’s that you say?  Basically when Drive Sentry asks you if it’s ok to run a certain application you’ll get a visual bar of how thousands of others around the world answered.  More green in the bar indicates that it’s probably OK to run the application in question.  More red in the bar indicates that the application trying to run is probably malicious and should be denied (click deny access) from any part of the system, thus making it harmless.

Download Drive Sentry

Definitions in this document:

host-based IPS (HIPS) – is one where the intrusion-prevention application is resident on that specific IP address, usually on a single computer. HIPS complements traditional finger-print-based and heuristic antivirus detection methods, since it does not need continuous updates to stay ahead of new malware. As ill-intended code needs to modify the system or other software residing on the machine to achieve its evil aims, a truly comprehensive HIPS system will notice some of the resulting changes and prevent the action by default or notify the user for permission.

Sandboxing – a sandbox is a security mechanism for safely running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers and untrusted users.

The sandbox typically provides a tightly-controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as scratch space on disk and memory. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted. In this sense, sandboxes are a specific example of virtualization.