PC Tools Releases ThreatFire 4.5

ThreatFire Provides Advanced, More Intuitive Behavioral Protection

San Francisco, July 22, 2009: PC Tools today announced the release of an update to its award-winning, ThreatFire.  Version 4.5 includes a smarter more intuitive alert system, an enhanced rootkit scanner to detect deeply hidden threats and improved detection capabilities.

 “As the malware threat landscape evolves and becomes increasingly sophisticated, it is critical that consumers look for security solutions that provide powerful proactive behavior-based protection against new and unknown threats and offer functionality and value for money” said Michael Greene, Vice President of Product Strategy, PC Tools.

“Uniquely, ThreatFire 4.5 is available free to consumers seeking a standalone behavioral based point solution that can seamlessly coexist with alternative security software solutions. ThreatFire also remains an integral feature of PC Tools’ Internet Security and Spyware Doctor with AV via the ‘Behavior Guard’ feature” said Greene.

ThreatFire 4.5 combines industry leading behavior-based protection and intuitive threat handling, using patent pending technology to efficiently identify threat variants and provide incremental protection of as much as 217% .  The latest version also employs Neural Network Technology and in-the-cloud black and white lists to automatically handle threats, significantly reducing user interaction.

New Features

• Neural Network Technology

ThreatFire 4.5 incorporates patent-pending neural network technology  that uses advanced statistical analysis to automatically determine “real” threats and reduce the occurrence of classifying legitimate programs as potentially malicious (known as a false positive) to ensure a superior user experience.

• Smarter Alerts, Less Questions – Patent-Pending Technology

ThreatFire 4.5 has been designed with a simple and intuitive security software alert system that uses patent-pending technology and in-the-cloud black/white lists to ensure that both the number and the type of alerts that require users to make a decision are kept to a minimum.

• Improved Threat Quarantine and Cleanup

ThreatFire now incorporates tracker technology that accurately traces the original source of the threat to ensure that only the malicious program is quarantined and that legitimate programs are unaffected. This feature provides user confidence that the system will not be compromised and ensures ThreatFire safely identifies all of the components of a malicious program.

Features as standard

• Patent-pending ActiveDefense real-time technology to provide constant protection for known, unknown and new threats

• Protects in the background with minimal impact on system resource usage

• Advanced detection capabilities, including an advanced rootkit scanner and patent-pending technology to provide greater accuracy in detecting real threats and an increased ability to avoid false positives.

• A Threat Detection map that indicates the geographical location and threat listings of recent malware detected within the ThreatFire User Community.

ThreatFire is available from www.threatfire.com  for free for all home users and includes free email and web-based technical support. Businesses can purchase ThreatFire Pro for $US29.95 to receive full technical and phone support.

About ThreatFire and Behavior-based Protection

Unlike traditional antivirus products, ThreatFire does not rely on signatures for protection and there is no delay in providing protection against zero-day threats. Using an intelligent behavioral engine, ThreatFire is immediately effective against malware.

ThreatFire is fully integrated with the automated threat analysis system, ThreatExpert, which provides users with known threat updates within minutes of a threat being first seen. ThreatFire defends computers in real-time against threats such as spyware, viruses, worms, Trojans, rootkits, keyloggers, buffer overflows by examining and monitoring the behavior of files, background activities and processes.

Note to Editor

To detect malicious behavior, ThreatFire monitors and watches every file operation (creation, copy, deletion, etc.), every process creation, modification and termination, every network communication (inbound and outbound) and every interaction with critical components of the operating system (registry, etc.).

At the core of ThreatFire is a process behavior analysis engine coupled with a set of specific predefined security rules which describe what is unacceptable from a process behavior analysis. The rules cover a wide range of events related to file operations, network operations, and interactions with the operating system. Every event from every process is efficiently analyzed by ThreatFire. When a rule is triggered, ThreatFire can terminate the detected malicious process.

PC Tools recommend product reviewers refer to the PC Tools reviewer’s guide that provides detailed information relating to behavior-based testing methodologies and references a range of independent sources.

About PC Tools

PC Tools is a global software leader with a cache of security and utility products, including the multi award-winning Spyware Doctor™. PC Tools is an industry leader in real-time anti-spyware and has a number of key patents pending.

The PC Tools Malware Research Center monitors trends and emerging spyware issues and provides security solutions for the consumer and enterprise marketplace. The company is headquartered in Sydney, with offices in San Francisco, London, Shannon (Ireland), Melbourne, Kiev, and Boulder. PC Tools has a global network of distributors, resellers, and retailers.

Media Contact

Lauren Young
Public Relations Manager
PC Tools Software
Phone: +61 (0) 2 8922 6394
Mobile: +61 410 541 562
E-mail: pr@pctools.com