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Acquire a new company.


Nazareno

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Acquisitions are something that can cost a lot of money, and require a lot of planning to be pulled off successfully. Plus, they'd probably need more information and feedback from the community about whether or not it would be a good idea and the like, more information on who VoodooShield actually are and what's special about their product, etc. Granted, anyone can do research pretty easily these days, but it would probably help the rest of the Malwarebytes community get on the same wavelength if they had more than just a name to go on, like why you suggest they be acquired.

I'm actually a bit worried about good companies growing too large, however. We could potentially end up with another Microsoft, which wouldn't exactly be a good thing. Even if they don't become corrupt (which I highly doubt they would, they're Malwarebytes!), it is still very possible that they'd become too large to effectively manage, and nobody wants a company that's too big to manage.

And of course, would it even be a wise investment? What if it's a decision that only leads to the company going bankrupt? I also highly doubt that would happen, but you really gotta think of both the worst-case and best-case scenarios when you present big questions like that.

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Now that I'm actually looking at the stuff for VoodooShield, I have to say... a system which automatically locks down your computer while web apps are running, and only allows already whitelisted programs to run, is an ingenious idea. Perhaps that could be the newest addition to my personal security suite arsenal; Malwarebytes, Windows Defender AV/ATP, GlassWire, Fair AdBlocker, and now VoodooShield also.

I still don't think an acquisition by Malwarebytes would be necessary though. A partnership, maybe, but certainly not an acquisition! That would be far too many different components to keep track of, and while a lockdown mode would be extremely helpful as an additional layer of security for the truly paranoid, it has the potential to meddle with the overall user experience due to potentially requiring extensive micromanagement.

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Yeah, if it's anything like a HIPS (which this definitely sounds like based on your description), I doubt they'd choose to go that route.  It's too hard for normal/novice users to know what to do when presented with a decision on whether to allow or block something, so anything that requires that level of knowledge and interaction and could potentially block something the user is trying to do or use could create a large number of support tickets and turn off a lot of users who just want a set-it-and-forget-it solution to security.

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I used it for several months, its not really a HIPS. More of an anti-exe, you put it in training mode and it whitelists everything on your computer, after that nothing is allowed to run unless you allow it. Its quite clever, works very well and is suitable for average users as there are very few popups or false positives. There is also a blacklist with multiple scanning engines that you can use. Just no sure how it could be integrated with MB3.

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3 hours ago, digmorcrusher said:

I used it for several months, its not really a HIPS. More of an anti-exe, you put it in training mode and it whitelists everything on your computer, after that nothing is allowed to run unless you allow it. Its quite clever, works very well and is suitable for average users as there are very few popups or false positives. There is also a blacklist with multiple scanning engines that you can use. Just no sure how it could be integrated with MB3.

The trouble with that is A what happens when the user downloads/runs something new on the PC during the training period that isn't necessarily safe? and B what about the kinds of users who regularly download "free" stuff from the web (like games, browser plugins, registry cleaning tools, driver updaters etc.)?

I think an anti-EXE is very much like a HIPS in that it requires a decision as to the safety of a file/action on the part of the user whenever the product encounters anything it hasn't seen before, which means users will either be paranoid and end up blocking things they shouldn't, or getting frustrated with it (as many have with UAC in Windows) and getting used to/defaulting to clicking "Allow" for everything and eventually allowing something to run that they shouldn't.  Either way, whenever you put the decision into the hands of the user, it kind of defeats the purpose of security software in my opinion, as many users would say "that's what I'm paying you for, to tell me what is safe and stop the stuff that isn't".

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand what they're trying to do, but I think its failure is the same as with any whitelist/HIPS type application, where there are just too many unknown files/programs, with too many new ones being created every day (both harmless and malicious), and the impatience of users who don't want to deal with endless prompts about whether to allow or block something who are just trying to use their PCs in the same way they operate their TVs, their cars, their microwaves, their phones and every other piece of technology in their lives.  They just want it to work, and if it has some security mechanism there to protect them, they want that mechanism to be fully automated so that they don't have to worry about it or understand how the product works or know anything about software/computers to use it.

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1 hour ago, Amaroq_Starwind said:

I suppose that's what Layered Security and Cloud-based Blacklists are for.

Bingo, and Malwarebytes already has those technologies (and much more) to provide protection against both known and unknown threats as well as common attack vectors (exploits, malicious scripts etc.).

Unfortunately, if even Google, who no doubt has more access to newly created web content/files than most other organizations can't accurately classify all items as malicious or safe, what hope does any security company with limited resources have?  Don't get me wrong, the filtering in Chrome (as well as in IE/MS Edge) is great, and has been tested and proven to do quite well against a slew of known bad sites/files, but it still falls short of the mark with regards to correctly identifying all threats and unsafe sites which is why users running that browser, even when using a solid AV on top of it, still get infected sometimes.

It's sad, but for all our efforts to protect the users, the bad guys are always working just as hard with the same or greater resources at their disposal to get around those security measures and infect as many users and make as much money as they can.  It is quite literally an endless digital arms race.

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But one day, something will happen. Something extraordinary. A miracle.

"Malwarebytes has detected TRON on your system. Allow this program to execute?"

For legal reasons, I do not wish to be the one who does this, but I cannot wait for the day that somebody develops a counter-malware system, infecting unsecured computers for the sole purpose of assassinating actual malware without leaving a trace.

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2 hours ago, exile360 said:

The trouble with that is A what happens when the user downloads/runs something new on the PC during the training period that isn't necessarily safe? and B what about the kinds of users who regularly download "free" stuff from the web (like games, browser plugins, registry cleaning tools, driver updaters etc.)?

I think an anti-EXE is very much like a HIPS in that it requires a decision as to the safety of a file/action on the part of the user whenever the product encounters anything it hasn't seen before, which means users will either be paranoid and end up blocking things they shouldn't, or getting frustrated with it (as many have with UAC in Windows) and getting used to/defaulting to clicking "Allow" for everything and eventually allowing something to run that they shouldn't.  Either way, whenever you put the decision into the hands of the user, it kind of defeats the purpose of security software in my opinion, as many users would say "that's what I'm paying you for, to tell me what is safe and stop the stuff that isn't".

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand what they're trying to do, but I think its failure is the same as with any whitelist/HIPS type application, where there are just too many unknown files/programs, with too many new ones being created every day (both harmless and malicious), and the impatience of users who don't want to deal with endless prompts about whether to allow or block something who are just trying to use their PCs in the same way they operate their TVs, their cars, their microwaves, their phones and every other piece of technology in their lives.  They just want it to work, and if it has some security mechanism there to protect them, they want that mechanism to be fully automated so that they don't have to worry about it or understand how the product works or know anything about software/computers to use it.

I get your points Exile, I also agree that for the average user the best protection is one that allows for the fewest decisions to be made by them. 

The training period is about 10 minutes.

I seem to recall that I had far less pop-ups using VS than for any HIPS I have tried.

Here is a quote from the developer " There is only one thing to keep in mind when using VoodooShield...
If VoodooShield blocks something that you would like to run, then allow it after it is automatically scanned.
Otherwise, if VoodooShield blocks something out of the blue, then just ignore it and assume it was a virus or malware.

 

 

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