New antivirus software from Panda scans in the clouds

Panda Security pulled the wraps off the beta of its new cloud-based antivirus solution mid-week. Panda Cloud Antivirus relies on a server-architecture to process and block malware, with only a thin-client agent running on a user's workstation. The company claims that such a design results in 50 percent less impact on PC performance.

Says Juan Santana, CEO for Panda Security: "You can't put all those signatures into the PC. Panda Cloud Antivirus represents a quantum leap in protection over the traditional approach to antivirus."

But won't such a system be weak when it comes to off-line protection? It should not be a concern, noted Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. The rationale is that new malware can only cause an infection when the computer is connected to the Internet, which means that Panda Cloud Antivirus will be able to tap into the huge pool of definitions assembled by Panda's "Collective Intelligence" servers.

Of course, Panda Security is certainly not alone in its efforts to think of migrating the scanning and determination processes to the cloud. At the moment though, it is the first to have a working product that is available for download, its beta status notwithstanding.

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