Why WinArmor is not a silver bullet

Malware protection is the discipline, not the tools. The WinArmor provides the way for you to follow discipline easier and gives you more freedom, but it does not replace discipline by tools.

Why WinArmor?

Every time using Internet you carry a risk to be attacked by trojans, spyware, adware and any other destructive software, you know. Till now, you have only three ways (and these became myths):

• Every second keep in mind it is risky. This way is similar to every time calling via your handy/cell phone you keep in mind this is risky: your phone can blast. So you don't trust anything and you know much about social engineering and social-based attacks, right?

• Use heavy monitors, firewalls, anti-viral software with every-second update of viral databases. This is a better way, but it reminds of a knight in full ammunition walking to the nearest shop for yet another beer. There is a better way, but do you think it is really comfortable?

  And you expect this way makes you protected like a Jedi Knight, maybe? Unfortunately, this is not right. Just take a look on such investigations like this or this; you'll find your knight ammunition provides you additional protection from 6% to 75%.

  The complete investigation is available here. This is not a point of trustworthy; but this is a good start to being a little skeptic with anti-viruses.

  You bought modern antivirus. What do you think the average detection rate (i.e. a malware sample was identified as "something bad") was?"

  Let me give you the answer: it is 33%. In other words, an average detection rate of malware from these "solutions" was 33% with maximum at 75% and minimum at 6% (!). Keep this number in mind, that shiny anti-virus product you just bought might be protecting you from just 6% of currently active and common malware (not some esoteric and custom uber-haxor stuff)!

• And the last way is ignoring possible attacks, like you swim in river with many alligators: you're lucky enough to find safe way, aren't you?

And, you know, Microsoft recently added new way for security experts; it leaves you to decide what your computer is doing (bad idea, I guess). You're the ultimate expert, if you are able to understand alert "Did you really start the process msmgs.exe?" while sending your email and this is your choice (with knight ammunition and deep social engineering knowledge, of course. All of them are absolutely necessary to buy yet another beer, sure).

Fortunately, WinArmor provides a new real alternative: stealth mode. With WinArmor, you don't need to quake every time you click the mouse as you have the way to undo your changes. With WinArmor you don't need to use heavy Jedi lightsaber, and while talking via messenger, you don't fight against viral software; and your swimming around alligators is tenfold safer than traditional methods.

What is WinArmor?

There is no magic; this is a new vision of safe ways in Internet. In few words, WinArmor provides you way to undo unexpected changes after they were made. The WinArmor have no viral databases and thousands of signatures; it uses simple fact that all viral software needs to be nailed to your system for further activity. So WinArmor imitates successful grips for viral attacks, but simple restart of your preferred browser, email client, chat or messenger will remove all nails but keep your data.

Of course, knight ammunition (antivirus) is helpful even with WinArmor; if you want to walk across mine fields, two armors (and even fancy shirt) are better than one, and additional 6% might keep your computer clean or not. But say good bye to the crazy technician idea that "every click is risky"; you now have a tool to make it safer and easier.

To manage separate settings for every application, like browser, WinArmor provides the so-called "sandbox", to illustrate it is the same way as for Flash and Java.

Every application in sandbox has its own registry copy, and its own drives (there are parts of existing file system area, in the similar manner as for WinJail but with additions). All other resources (network, pipes, windows, etc) are shared to keep your usual activity unchanged.

The typical sandbox contains:

• it's own system drive
• it's own registry (both system and user settings)
• it's own other drives (optional)
• shared drives (CD-ROM, network drives, USB storage devices, particular hard drive partitions or folders) (optional)
• shared TCP/IP services, named pipes and other IPC services

WinArmor is totally automatic and you don't need to manage applications yourself with hundreds of annoying notifications.

WinArmor possibilities:

• Spawn specific applications with sandboxes
• Manage profiles for every application and service
• Provide separation on per user/per group basis; different sandboxes can be used for the same process but with different effective credentials
• Prepare sandbox environment with friendly interface
• Specify sandboxes to be applied automatically
• With "copy on write", "shared", "private" and "immutable" folders, keep your data safe.

WinArmor is designed for two preferred use cases: WinArmor Desktop and WinArmor Server.

For Desktop, WinArmor provides predefined "armors" for around 50 most popular browsers, email clients, messengers, downloaders, chats, etc; so in typical case you need to start WinArmor and enjoy (but keep in mind non-armored programs are point of attack).

For Server, WinArmor provides predefined "armors" for typical server tasks, like sharing your web resources (HTTP, FTP, WebDAV, and more), network services (DNS, LDAP, etc) and other services available from Windows 2003 out of box, plus popular FTP and Web Servers. The main goal of the Server edition is to keep your data secure and manage your services isolated from each other, like Linux-specific guards SElinux and AppArmor.

Why WinArmor is alternative?

Most known solutions (except exotic and specifically targetted) are oriented to protect your data after viral incident was coming. WinArmor works in other way: it isolates most popular ways of attacks before attacks are initiated. It is similar to antivirus in your modem that informs you incoming data is possibly dangerous, but for every your communication program separately and with ability to "undo" wrong decision. Even your ICQ client will be hacked, your system and your other applications are still safe. In other hand, with WinArmor you can see which files were coming with attack, and remove it easy (as it in separate place). This action can be done without any experience, by few mouse clicks. And it does not need much resources of your computer as other tools does; WinArmor is "lightweight" solutuon in this sense. As an alternative to WinArmor, you need either dozen of tools to protect and clean your computer (spy sweepers, anti-viruses, firewalls, and much more). And of course, you need to control your hands to not allow such attack by typo mistake.

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