It's Hip to be Cloud
More from the recent backlogs of Ars Technica, with some proof of how trendy and popular the nebulous cloud concept is. In this case, an antivirus system is being touted as a cloud-based solution. I personally interpret it as the Web 2.0 solution to antivirus, with the solution being a large server-side sampling system that checks running processes on users computers and then informs everyone across the network of anti-virus subscribers in real-time.
This “Immunet” product sounds neat, and does address some standard problems with traditional anti-virus solutions. The age-old problem of keeping virus definitions up-to-date, resource intensive applications, and the ever changing face of malware making it difficult to keep up with. Apparently this Immunet product will be able to not just compare viruses and malware against lists of known attributes, but will be able to check running processes good/bad characteristics. Who knows what this actually means, but the overall gist of the information I’m getting is that this is clearly an example of software trying to be sold utilizing the “cloud” buzzword. Especially when one sees that they still recommend running client-side anti-virus software, too.
Smells a little fishy.