Village Gamer

Victoria – ParetoLogic has gone live with their newest in anti-spyware, the Zheng™ File Analysis service. Zheng™ allows people to upload and scan a specific file on their PC. The service will then automatically detect any malware and inform the user if the file is safe or infected. Along with a simple summary, the service also provides detailed information for advanced users.

ParetoLogic’s Spyware Analysis Team (SWAT), recent finalists for VIATeC’s Team of the Year award, spearheaded the Zheng™ File Analysis service. Jerome Segura, Team Leader of SWAT, said of the project: “Zheng™ is a long term and expensive effort primarily oriented on pure research. It shows our commitment to develop new technologies and stay on the edge.”

Uploads are not limited to current ParetoLogic customers – anyone with an internet connection can have files scanned at no cost. By inviting all users to scan files, SWAT is better able to detect and remove threats. When each file is scanned, the characteristics of infected files are noted by Zheng™. These are then passed along to the Spyware Analysis Team for analysis, so they may further refine their anti-spyware technology. The more threats analyzed by Zheng™, the more fodder SWAT has for research and the better they are able to target spyware.

Segura explained that “Zheng™ utilizes complex heuristics and does not rely on signatures. This makes it the best system to detect zero day threats.” Heuristic scanning utilizes special detection criteria in which the behavior and characteristics of malicious software are scanned for, whereas signature-based scanning looks for the specific byte-patterns of known threats. By using both scanning technologies, ParetoLogic aims to provide a more reliable scan.

On SWAT’s Malware Diaries blog, Segura said that: “I have always been interested in innovative and creative ideas. That is one of our strengths as a young company, to always be pushing the boundaries and achieve the best level of service.”