• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Panda Security Celebrates Second Anniversary of Collective Intelligence

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 June 2009, 13:48 CDT

- The technology behind the first cloud-based security solutions on the market was first available in 2007

- Collective Intelligence is a suite of technologies designed to automatically analyze, classify and disinfect all malware received at PandaLabs

- Thanks to Collective Intelligence, PandaLabs can process an average of 50,000 files a day, 35,000 of which are new strains of malware

- To analyze, classify and disinfect all files received in the first quarter of 2009 would have required 1,898 technicians and almost one million working hours

GLENDALE, Calif., June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- PandaLabs, Panda Security's malware analysis and detection laboratory is celebrating the second anniversary of Collective Intelligence today. This combination of technologies can scan, classify and disinfect all the files received every day at PandaLabs. Now, two years after the launch, Collective Intelligence has enabled Panda to position itself as The Cloud Security Company, offering the market the first cloud-based security solution: Panda Cloud Antivirus (www.cloudantivirus.com).

The existence of a highly profitable underground criminal cyber-business model forced security laboratories to be inundated by tons of new malware in recent years. This in turn made users more vulnerable, and there were only two possible solutions: rapidly expand laboratory resources in order to process new malware manually; or automate processes and equip the teams adequately so that disinfection routines could be generated automatically.

PandaLabs chose the most innovative yet most difficult path, deciding to face to the challenge that no other company had taken on: the development of a system based on artificial intelligence which could recognize new malware as it learns and adapts to the new techniques of cyber-criminals.

Collective Intelligence first became available on the market in 2007, in the form of a small, free online scanner called NanoScan, detecting active malware in memory in just a few seconds. Given the positive reception to this initiative and the effectiveness of the technology, Panda Security decided to boost the detection capacity of the 2009 products by incorporating these cloud-based technologies into all of their solutions.

The Collective Intelligence system can correlate and process new malware in just six minutes, thanks to all the files received from the community every day. Sharing knowledge in this way results in far greater detection capacity available to all Panda clients. Collective Intelligence systems receive 50,000 new files every day, 35,000 of which are new malware. Of these, some 99.4 percent are processed automatically, leaving just 0.6 percent to be dealt with manually. The Collective Intelligence database is currently over 18,000 GB and holds around 26 million malware samples.

"If all this knowledge was stored on the user's computer, we would be talking about the perfect antivirus, but there would be no room left for anything else on the system. That's why Collective Intelligence is not just a response to the exponential increase in malware, but it also allows us to offer maximum detection capacity while reducing the impact on users' computers", explains Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs.

In April 2009, the user community around the world became, in effect, a vast global laboratory, thanks to the launch of an ultra-light cloud based antivirus: Panda Cloud Antivirus (www.cloudantivirus.com). To view a video explaining how it works, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-JfW4Ut8kg.

Collective Intelligence in numbers

• 50,000 files are received every day, 35,000 of these are new malware. 99.4 percent are processed automatically by Collective Intelligence, taking six minutes for each file on average
• 52% of new malware processed by Collective Intelligence only stays in existence for 24 hours
• In the first quarter of 2009, Collective Intelligence processed 4,474,350 files. To do this manually would have required 1,898 technicians and 926,347 working hours
• The Collective Intelligence database is now 18,000 GB or 148 billion bits. If this amount of information were in text format, it would be equivalent to 727,373 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, with almost 33 billion pages
• Laid end-to-end, these printed pages would stretch for over 9 million kilometers, the equivalent of going to the moon and back twelve times
• If we had to send this information across a standard ADSL connection, it would take 1,045 days

You can find more information and the full history of Collective Intelligence at www.pandalabs.com.

About PandaLabs

Since 1990, its mission has been to detect and eliminate new threats as rapidly as possible to offer our clients maximum security. To do so, PandaLabs has an innovative automated system that analyzes and classifies thousands of new samples a day and returns automatic verdicts (malware or goodware). This system is the basis of collective intelligence, Panda Security's new security model which can even detect malware that has evaded other security solutions.

Currently, 94% of malware detected by PandaLabs is analyzed through this system of collective intelligence. This is complemented through the work of several teams, each specialized in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, phishing, spam, etc), who work 24/7 to provide global coverage. This translates into more secure, simpler and more resource-friendly solutions for clients.

More information is available in the PandaLabs blog: http://www.pandalabs.com

SOURCE Panda Security

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category