Cloud Antivirus Promises A New Approach From Panda Security

The free software is designed to scan the cloud to collect antivirus signatures, leading to faster protection from the newest viruses and less load on end-user computers.In beta now, Panda Cloud Antivirus

Jonathan Penn, at Forrester Reasearch (author of "The State Of SMB IT Security: 2008 To 2009," and a keynote panelist at today's bMighty bSecure virtual event!), told InformationWeek's Thomas Clayburn that this approach should strengthen Panda's threat intelligence network, and speed the delivery of threat signature files compared to traditional AV software relied upon by many consumers.

Panda, meanwhile, claims that Cloud Antivirus delivers antivirus updates 100 times faster than traditional approaches, which promises to cut the percentage of users with up-to-date antivurus software who are nevertheless infected with malware from 24% to 4% -- according to a company survey. Just as important, it's a light download with a small footprint on the user's computer, and doesn't require any user intervention for configuration or updates.

Sounds good, but as a consumer-focused product Panda Cloud Antivirus seems suitable primarily for only very small businesses. The cloud-based security concept, however, should increasingly show up in all kinds of security products.