Kaspersky Lab presents Kaspersky Security Scan – a free tool to double-check your security status

Comunicato stampa: Kaspersky Security Scan


Editore: Kaspersky Lab

Kaspersky Lab’s free utility Kaspersky Security Scan, designed to diagnose a computer’s security status and produce up-to-date information about the threats and vulnerabilities existing in the system, detects dangerous malware that is often overlooked by popular commercial security solutions. The modern anti-malware technologies incorporated into Kaspersky Security Scan have helped thousands of users around the world to detect viruses and Trojans that were active on their computers. The developers of modern commercial and free security solutions assure users that with their software the computer is completely secure. In reality, this is not always true: as Kaspersky Lab found out in an early 2013 survey, even popular, tried-and-tested solutions can overlook a dangerous malware program and fail to inform users about a threat. For example, in a study conducted by Kaspersky Lab, a Trojan called ZAccess was detected on a large number of computers protected by other vendors’ security solutions. Once installed, this malicious program can download extra modules with which it performs various malicious activities: it spoofs search engine results, automatically follows links suggested by cybercriminals, downloads files, etc. Sality is another malicious program uncovered in Kaspersky Lab’s study. After a successful infection, this piece of malware disables security solutions installed on the victim computer and blocks access to security vendors’ web domains. To prevent manual deletion of the virus, all attempts to use Windows Task Manager and Registry Editor are also blocked. After installation, the program downloads a number of extra malicious modules, such as a module for stealing confidential data of the computer owner (including logins and passwords to accounts in various web services), a module for sending spam, and a module for turning the victim computer into a tool to brute force passwords. ZAccess and Sality are just two of the numerous malware programs Kaspersky Lab specialists detected on the computers involved in the study. The conclusion is startling: even tried-and-true security solutions cannot ensure complete security and require a second opinion.

Source: http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/press/2013/Kaspersky_Security_Scan_finds_malware_that_other_AVs_miss?cid=acq_pad