14 DAY TRIAL // The Slovakia-based security vendor ESET is one of the fastest growing antivirus companies. Its NOD32 Antivirus program has seen a wide appreciation in Europe for a long time, but in recent years the company has gained significant traction in other markets around the globe as well.
As we were curious about the company's current strategies, as well as its plans for the future, we got in contact with Richard Marko, ESET's chief technology officer, who was kind enough to answer a few questions. Read on to find out what are ESET's priorities for its antivirus product and how it plans to tackle the new, complex threats recently observed.
Softpedia: Which proved to be the most productive marketing strategies for ESET? (Product placement, contests for free licenses, etc.)
Richard Marko: I think the best marketing strategy is to have a good product and a relation of trust with our partners. Some neat marketing tricks, catchy graphics etc. can help build your corporate image and find new clients but a good product and ethics is alpha and omega of our business.
Softpedia: In which region of the globe is NOD32 predominant, and what would be the particular reason to that?
Richard Marko: Central Europe has been our stronghold for years but we’re experiencing high growth in important markets like Japan, China or USA and already achieved solid presence in South America region, Italy, Spain, Russia and even remote countries like New Zealand.
Softpedia: Some antivirus developers have included new technologies in free versions of their antivirus, with the result of the user base spiking to new levels. Is there a chance for the company to be releasing a free product in the near future? If so, would it be accompanied by new technology?
Richard Marko: Our experience is that the price is not among key factors when our users opt for our products and we don’t want it to become so. We don’t want our product to become just a commodity on shelves. So free antivirus is not in ESET´s business plan for now. Everybody can download our free trial version and give it a try.
Softpedia: More and more security vendors have taken solid steps in developing security products for Apple systems. Does this market have enough potential, given that, currently, malware writers are still attracted to Microsoft's work or is a different sort of security that which you are offering? One more oriented towards identity theft and online scams?
Richard Marko: By developing a security solution for Linux and Mac, ESET is responding to the user demand, as well as the growing popularity of these operating systems which naturally attracts interest of cybercrime. Apart from that they have been known to act as a carrier for computer threats infecting other workstations in the network running on the Microsoft Windows platform.
Softpedia: What is the general focus in ESET's development efforts for the next major version of NOD32 antivirus? Implementing new technologies, improving performance and/or detection rate, user friendliness, etc.?
Richard Marko: Our main priorities don’t change: stable code, high performance and effectiveness, in this order. Our main effort is therefore to strengthen these priorities but naturally we’re working on some new features like parental control, support of new popular platforms like Mac and mobile platforms. As for the user friendliness – our goal is zero maintenance for a typical user while leaving possibility to tweak the product for advanced users.
Softpedia: Social-network websites amass an enormous amount of personal data, thus putting their users at risk of social engineering. Do you think that antivirus products can elaborate any sort of protection for these users? Or all that can be done is raise the awareness level among them?
Richard Marko: I think everybody should understand that any information put on a computer connected to the Internet is in risk of being stolen and misused. No current system can provide 100% protection. Social network websites are great idea but just like any popular sphere they automatically attract cybercriminals.
Client-based protection helps, security mechanisms built into these websites help too. Still putting my personal data, pictures, my hobbies, activities, vacation plans etc. on a poster on my front door is not quite wise even if my door has a strong lock. It’s not wiser doing so on a social network website.
Softpedia: Plenty of users do not make a difference between various web browsers on the market, even confuse web browsers with search engines or an icon of a web browser with "the Internet." What sort of security product do you suppose they have installed on their machines?
Richard Marko: In better case the one that was pre-installed on their PC when they bought it or the one recommended by a friend. In the worst case a fake AV - a malware that behaves like an AV protection. There are many of them and they are used heavily by cybercriminals in recent years.
Softpedia: Considering the multitude of incidents where complex pieces of malware like ZeuS have managed to evade even the most capable antivirus engines and infect computers, we could say that the industry as a whole has a problem in keeping up with these constantly evolving threats. How do you plan to increase your product's efficiency in this respect?
Richard Marko: I believe we are keeping up reasonably well. IT security is about continual fight against cybercriminals. An unprotected PC connected to the Internet will get infected within minutes. With our systems running and updated best chances are you will never get infected.
The AV protection has evolved into complex systems, really a state-of-art technology in many respects. For example the current state of Internet infrastructure allows us to employ new technologies like reputation services which is a powerful tool. Right now it helps a lot in false positives prevention and performance tuning. It is just a beginning.
Softpedia: Some antivirus solutions for emerging mobile operating systems like Android have recently been announced. Do you think there is an actual necessity for such products at this time or are they just another marketing tool?
Richard Marko: At the beginning it is usually a marketing tool. At the same time it is an important opportunity to gain experience with new platforms, form development teams etc. Simply to get ready for the future when such knowledge might become crucial.
Softpedia: The Business Edition of NOD32 Antivirus contains a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS) component, which uses behavioral analysis to stop attacks from unknown malware. Some antivirus vendors already include such protection in products destined for home use. Do you plan to also include this component in future versions of NOD32 Home Edition?
Richard Marko: I mentioned that AV protection has become a complex system. It is difficult to separate one part of the system and say it is the important one. Marketing departments need some good sounding words to describe some virtual features to argue why one system is better than another one. HIPS is an example of such buzzwords. Behavior analysis has been a part of our product for many years, for both Business and Home Editions.
Softpedia: Do you think cloud computing is a viable solution to reduce malware outbreak response times and augment the performance of antivirus products? Do you consider implementing some sort of server-assisted malware scanning technology into your products in the near future?
Richard Marko: Our ThreatSense.Net system is an example of such server-assisted technology and has been part of our product for five years already. It is under constant evolution and now contains reputation services, functionality to collect malware samples and various statistical data. It is a huge benefit now and with the next generation of our products it will allow us to provide further new cool features.