ZDNet blog’s No more need for an antivirus software? article about a recent University of Michigan study on Next-Generation Anti Virus, called CloudAV, is an interesting read, but I wonder about the feasibility of a CloudAV-like product altogether replacing Anti Virus on your personal computer.

ABOUT CLOUDAV

CloudAV uses multiple Anti Virus engines, so there is no total reliance on one AV product (engine), thus increasing reliability over single-product PC Anti Virus programs. A “lightweight, cross-platform host agent” is installed on your computer (device) and it sends files to CloudAV where they are checked to see if they are okay or not.

DRAWBACKS, yeah we got that

It sounds really good to have the Anti Virus updates occur on the Internet instead of having to download and update to your computer, but I think there are some drawbacks worth considering.

• For starters it sounds like files are first downloaded to your computer, then uploaded to the CloudAV network for inspection & approval. This means an actual download will take over 2X longer than it does now, because upload speeds are invariably slower than downloads.
• Also since CloudAV resides on the Internet (on a server or servers) it offers malicious users the opportunity to attack to cripple CloudAV, possibly leaving millions of computers at-a-time vulnerable, if successful.
• Similar to above, introducing a new error message – “Sorry CloudAV is unusually busy today, please try again later.”

So, what do you say? Are you ready to wait longer for your downloads and run the risk that you may not be able to do anything with your downloads, possibly on a recurring basis?

USE? Of course, everything has a use

As noted on ZDNe, CloudAV is just an academics project at this point, but it surely will be developed and find a market – but where? I think the main place would be on Intranets and other large networks. Imagine a large University or company with thousands of computers and enough speed that uploading the files for verification they are safe is minimzed. Large private networks such as these could *really* reap the benefits of a system such as CloudAV, andwho knows, maybe some day it will be on your home computers.

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Posted in Computers by George No Comments Yet