September 17, 2013

Russian anti-virus company Doctor Web has released the ninth version of its products Dr.Web Security Space and Dr.Web Anti-virus for Windows.

Dr.Web 9.0 for Windows incorporates an array of innovations, providing enhanced protection from today’s most relevant threats. The new Dr.Web behaviour analyser promptly detects the latest modifications of Trojan.Encoder programs to protect user data from being decrypted by malware. It also detects known threats disguised with new packers. Upgrades made to the SpIDer Guard file monitor and Dr.Web Cloud have significantly reduced their consumption of system resources and have made Dr.Web’s operation even more unnoticeable. The new protection technologies of Dr.Web 9.0 ensure that user web searches and instant messaging are secure, while changes made to the Dr.Web Firewall have minimized the need for users to create new filtering rules.

New! The behaviour analyser Dr.Web Process Heuristic offers effective protection against the latest unknown threats. Nearly 90% of the real threats that trouble users are Trojans: the Winlock, Encoder, Inject and Exploit families are known not only in Russia but also far beyond its borders. Years of experience analysing malware behaviour patterns laid the groundwork for Dr.Web Process Heuristic’s routines. Those routines make it possible to instantly neutralize threats—before a computer and its user incur serious damage. The similarity in the behaviour of many malicious programs enables Dr.Web Process Heuristic to identify malignant applications which are not yet known to Dr.Web, particularly new modifications of Trojan.Encoder and Trojan.Inject.

New! Protecting user data from corruption—a real opportunity to save valuable files. The data protection feature enables a user to select the directories they need and create protected backups, so that later, if a malicious object has managed to ravage the system, the information can be restored. The data protection technology lets the user save the changes that were made to the original files—through a user-defined time interval or manually, on command. Please note that this technology is not meant to replace proper backups but rather to provide protection against threats that have been identified by the Dr.Web behaviour analyser: now you don't need to contact the support service to restore data that was corrupted before Dr.Web Process Heuristic went into action; you can restore it yourself.

New! The unique comprehensive analyser of packed threats provides effective detection of known malicious objects concealed with new packers. This technology uses the behaviour pattern analyser Dr.Web Process Heuristic, and—in real time, and at the onset of a malicious process’s activity—makes it possible to detect that process using available, signature-based Dr.Web records. This significantly improves the detection of supposedly "new" threats that may already be known to Dr.Web but have been packed in such a way that an anti-virus doesn’t recognize them.

Improved! The optimisation of Dr.Web Cloud and SpIDer Guard results in increased anti-virus scanning speed. Thanks to revamped Dr.Web SpIDer Guard routines, the performance of machines involved in processing large amounts of data (torrent downloads, code compiling and rendering) has been improved. Also with the goal of improving performance, there has been a redesign of the architecture of the Dr.Web Cloud service which sends URLs the user is about to visit to Doctor Web for scanning in real time.

New! A new system for thoroughly scanning all traffic; all possible transit routes viruses could use to penetrate a computer via the Internet are blocked. Traffic (including encrypted traffic) over all protocols supported by SpIDer Mail and SpIDer Gate and on all ports is scanned—changing a port won't help avoid inspection. With version 9.0, users can also enjoy Safe Search with Google, Yandex, Yahoo!, Bing, and Rambler; only links to secure sites will appear in search results. Links to unsafe content are filtered out by the search engines themselves. Communication via such popular instant messaging services as Mail.Ru Agent, ICQ and Jabber is protected, too: their traffic is filtered, links that lead to malware and phishing sites are cropped from messages, and transferred files are scanned for viruses. The transfer of files that Dr.Web considers potentially dangerous is blocked.

New! The Dr.Web 9.0 Parental Control module can block anyone from changing the system time and time zone, so children can’t use the computer outside of their scheduled time. This module also lets you disable the sending of print jobs, which protects against the unauthorized printing of confidential documents and can save on paper and ink.

New! Block access to pirated sites to protect the interests of content copyright holders. Upon user consent, SpIDer Gate can now block access to sites distributing unlicensed content.

Dr.Web users are shown a warning stating that "pirated" resources are off-limits and are asked whether they want to go to the copyright owner’s website. The list of sites with unlicensed content will be updated upon the request of copyright holders.

New! The updated Dr.Web Firewall provides maximum ease of use. Previously, the firewall used a pre-installed database of applications and user-defined rules. Now it divides applications into those that can be trusted (legitimate from the point of view of Dr.Web) and those that cannot. Trusted applications can connect to any location and on any port. The firewall is now organised to minimize the number of questions asked by the application when the user is adjusting operating parameters.