Anti-virus vendors adding spyware to target list

Businesses that use anti-virus software to protect employee desktops now say they also want to eradicate spyware, a demand that's prompting anti-virus vendors to plunge into spyware's murky waters.

For example, Computer Associates, which sells anti-virus software under its eTrust security product line, last week bought anti-spyware software vendor PestPatrol for an undisclosed sum.

McAfee this week plans to make available VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i, the first edition of its anti-virus software designed to wipe out 200 types of spyware in addition to protecting against worms. Other anti-virus vendors, including F-Secure, Trend Micro and Symantec, also are taking on spyware, said to include everything from adware to malware-like Trojans and keyloggers.

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Businesses that use anti-virus software to protect employee desktops now say they also want to eradicate spyware, a demand that's prompting anti-virus vendors to plunge into spyware's murky waters.

For example, Computer Associates, which sells anti-virus software under its eTrust security product line, last week bought anti-spyware software vendor PestPatrol for an undisclosed sum.

McAfee this week plans to make available VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i, the first edition of its anti-virus software designed to wipe out 200 types of spyware in addition to protecting against worms. Other anti-virus vendors, including F-Secure, Trend Micro and Symantec, also are taking on spyware, said to include everything from adware to malware-like Trojans and keyloggers.

Whatever you call it, the thousands of incarnations of adware and spyware are raising security and privacy concerns and disrupting desktop machines.

"We are having to re-image about 20 desktops per week because they become non-functional from spyware," says Satish Ajnani, CIO for Santa Clara county, which supports a network of 13,000 desktops.

IT managers are glad that anti-virus vendors say they're ready to fight spyware. But many question how far anti-virus companies will get in their anti-spyware crusade.

To find both spyware and virus protection in one software package "would be nice," says Ted Downs, network operations manager at retail food chain Auntie Anne's, based in Gap, Pa. This probably would hold down costs. But so far, anti-virus vendors don't appear to have comprehensive spyware protection.

CA has no immediate plans to blend its eTrust anti-virus and the PestPatrol anti-spyware software. But by year-end the company will adapt PestPatrol to work with its eTrust management consoles to unify the anti-virus and anti-spyware software deployment and reporting, says Sam Curry, vice president of eTrust Security Management. "We'll have a common update engine for both."

One problem in adding comprehensive anti-spyware protection into anti-virus is that the software file size would bloat, says John Bedrick, group product marketing manager at McAfee.

"If we did everything Spybot or PestPatrol does, that would be about 8 megabytes," he notes. That would mean doubling VirusScan, which is about 10 megabytes.

"We're not claiming to be a replacement for anti-spyware," Bedrick says.

However, McAfee this fall likely will broaden its spyware scope although it's not clear whether this would end up in VirusScan or as a separate product.

F-Secure also is mulling a spyware defense. According to Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's research director, the company plans to introduce anti-adware capability this fall.

Symantec in April added limited anti-spyware protection to its corporate anti-virus software, as a separate scanning engine for what it calls "expanded threats," says Gary Ulaner, Symantec group product manager. "We've put our foot in the water."

Anti-virus experts have started analyzing spyware in one of the most influential industry groups: the Computer Anti-Virus Research Organization. The group has found quite a bit of adware that's been abandoned in desktop machines, trying to relay information to Web sites that no longer exist.