Check your sources!

[Q Section]

Hello Everyone

Today by accident we came across an anti-virus program we have not heard of previously. We looked over their professional-looking website and decided to contact them asking about the testing that had been done on the program. Their web-site said that the program had been tested independently by security laboratories.

Upon receiving an answer from their tech services department we have learned that they do not know what are zoo virii and in-the-wild virii. The tech had not heard of these before. The tech mentioned that many govenments and large industries have purchased their software, though.

A lesson - if you are checking software to purchase, ask many questions to check the veracity of the company!

BTW - we are very happy using NOD32 and were not thinking of switching.

[Weber]

Could you give us the address of their site?
I'd like to check...

[Wayne - DiamondCS]

{QUOTE-> ask many questions to check the veracity of the company <-QUOTE}
Anti-virus scanners aside, you may (or may not) be surprised to know that most other scanners are actually made by individuals (as opposed to registered businesses), so in many cases you're not trusting your systems security to a known reputable business, but rather just one person - and that one person has to handle all aspects of the job (including sales, email support, forum support, research, development, website maintenance, finding samples, analysing samples, adding detection for samples, and so on). Whether they as individuals can complete all of those tasks thoroughly enough when there are so many new viruses/trojans/etc being released each day, well, I'll let you be the judge of that :)

[Q Section]

{QUOTE-> quoting: Weber link=board=24;threadid=18326;start=0#msg112975 date=1072200197]
Could you give us the address of their site?
I'd like to check...
<-QUOTE}

It is Command Antivirus (http://www.authentium.com/index.cfm).

Thank you Wayne. Good advice!

[Technodrome]

{QUOTE-> quoting: QSection link=board=24;threadid=18326;start=0#msg113595 date=1072386334]

It is Command Antivirus (http://www.authentium.com/index.cfm).
<-QUOTE}
This is very strange since I use Command AV for many years (they certainly know about zoo viruses). They are in business since early 90s ( f-prot professional).

Dunno about that tech...maybe he was smoking something. ;)



tECHNODROME

[AgentX]

Yeah, I agree with Technodrome.
CSAV has been in business for long. It's simply unbelievable that they don't know
about zoo viruses and et cetera.

BTW, do they still use the F-Prot engine?

- AgentX

[Q Section]

This is what got our attention:

[Q Section]

So we contacted them to inquire about their claim of "Independently tested by rigorous security laboratories."

Their response is posted in our first post.

We do not mean to knock any companies but the point is to check thoroughly all sources and information on mission-critical applications when appropriate.

Best wishes and Merry Christmas!

[Technodrome]

{QUOTE-> quoting: QSection link=board=24;threadid=18326;start=0#msg113605 date=1072391018]
So we contacted them to inquire about their claim of "Independently tested by rigorous security laboratories." <-QUOTE}

They probably mean: ICSA, Check-Mark, VB, VTC, AV-Test.org etc. Command AV is ranked among the best in these tests.

{QUOTE-> Their response is posted in our first post. <-QUOTE}

Who did you contact?

tECHNODROME

[Technodrome]

{QUOTE-> quoting: AgentX link=board=24;threadid=18326;start=0#msg113601 date=1072390131]
BTW, do they still use the F-Prot engine?

<-QUOTE}

Yes. Command AV is still based on F-Prot engine.


tECHNODROME

[Q Section]

We placed a call to their number and asked for sales. Sales answered and we said we had a little question about the anti-virus program. The woman answered and said "One moment please" as she said they transfer all anti-virus calls to technical services because they should be able to answer any questions about it and immediately transferred the call. The man who answered did not know much about the world of anti-virus. He was a native Yank and not someone in another country judging by the accent.

Try it yourselves and see. Possibly it is a case of good product/poor management. That is all too common, is it not? Well anyway now we know some of the Wilders gang thinks it is OK so there we are. ;D

[Prince_Serendip]

;) Poor salespeople rarely know nor care what they are selling. Their mission is to move product.

Here is a review by PC Magazine:

{QUOTE-> Command Antivirus
Larry Seltzer
June 11, 2002 ******

Product: Command Antivirus
Price: With one-year subscription, $56.95 direct
Company Info: Command Software Systems Inc., www.commandsoftware.com

Editor Rating: (2 out of 5 stars)

Command Antivirus is disappointing in almost every regard. It is perhaps the most difficult program to work with. Performing even the simplest tasks is confusing. For example, specifying particular file types to scan is treated as a global option, affecting all scan tasks.

Like F-Secure, Command Antivirus uses the F-Prot scan engine. Command Software Systems, however, adds its own research on virus definitions to the data provided by F-Prot.

Updating definitions is particularly difficult. Automatic updates require complex network administration work. Even once you set this feature up successfully, updates aren't as automated as with most of the other products. Command Antivirus also does not scan desktop e-mail usage.

Command Antivirus did very poorly on our tests, causing a 13.5 percent hit on system performance. It also failed to detect five of the WildList viruses on our Virus Detection test. <-QUOTE}


For a complete history of Command's test results go to Virus Bulletin (http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/archives/products.xml?command.xml).

Command AV has been around since OS/2 days, prior to 1998. It won high marks back then. Now, Virus Bulletin shows it to be a failure. It is by no means new, just not very popular nor much good I suppose.

[ellison64]

The vba awards can "fail" a product that has 100% detection in all categories of virus detection including the all important in the wild ,but disqualifies it for a single false positive in a clean file.Subsequently they can "pass" a product that detects no false positives in a clean file and that detects all in the wild viruses ,but fails to detect 100s of other viruses.Unless you are a vba subscriber you dont have access to all the information that would be required for a proper evaluation of a products performance,therfore the vba awards can be "misleading" to the average browser looking at the test results for each product.

http://www.nod32.com.au/nod32/awards/vb0207.htm

http://www.virusbtn.com/resources/wildlists/index.xml

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/about/100procedure.xml

[Technodrome]

{QUOTE-> quoting: Prince_Serendip link=board=24;threadid=18326;start=0#msg113675 date=1072425952]
;) Poor salespeople rarely know nor care what they are selling. Their mission is to move product.

Here is a review by PC Magazine:
<-QUOTE}

Rubbish and amateur review. As always... ;)


{QUOTE-> Command AV has been around since OS/2 days, prior to 1998. It won high marks back then. Now, Virus Bulletin shows it to be a failure. It is by no means new, just not very popular nor much good I suppose. <-QUOTE}

VB failures were due bugs on non-Microsoft system such as Linux or Novell. It’s popular as enterprise solution and less popular as retail solution (home use). If you carefully look at all those tests that I mentioned above you could see how good it is.


tECHNODROME

[Blackcat]

I have just switched to using CSAV on one of my boxes here and so far I am very pleased with this AV.

It has a good, RECENT record over at Virus Bulletin and it has very good virus detection using the F-Prot engine.

The report in PC magazine is an OLD one and older versions of this AV were known to contain certain bugs. Since then, Command AV has improved considerably and a new version 5 is just around the corner.

My dealings with their UK support site has been very quick and they are very much 'on the ball' with their technical knowledge.

I cannot give any insight to the 'shortcomings' of the US site support but I would be surprised that they would employ someone with such little basic knowledge.

Overall, I would highly recommend CSAV as a primary or a back-up scanner and people should not be put off by ONE report of poor support.

[Karl_Menshy]

Just let me add a quick comment on the quality of CSAV support. I have never dealt with the marketing people, so maybe their quality differs ... ;).
All my support questions have been answered very quickly and in a competent manner, always providing a real person to talk to in case problems are a bit more difficult to track down. All this without having hundreds of licenses in a corporate network, but being a single desktop user. CSAV support was one of the better experiences in the AV field. So I'd like to second what Technodrome and Blackcat said about the company...