How many viruses in the NOD database?

I noticed that ESET doesnt say how many viruses they have in their database, is this because they dont consider some viruses that other companies like Symantec consider virsues. Can anyone maybe tell me why they dont say, or how many virsues are in the database.

 

Y'know, virus count really does not define an AV today, the only way you can see if an AV is good or not is by testing. There is no substitute for that.

 

Ya I have tested a few of them, but I love NOD over all of them. I dont have that great of a computer so its all about the recources for me.

 

ya i read that, thats how I knew about the not considering all virsues. I wass just wondering how many they do include

 

Yup! And testing proves that NOD is not at all a bad AV. So why do you worry?

Certain AVs can detect many malware using just the heuristics engine or a generic signature. In such cases, they dont need to code signatures for different variants of the malware. This can result in a lower number of malware in the database. But rest assured detection is not affected.

Regards,
Firecat

 

here are the viruses in the updates database as far as I have it...

http://www.nod32usa.com/nod32-updates/viruses.php

 

He wants it in numbers...who'd want to read that long list?

 

Mike .
If you look , you will see that NOD always ranks very high in testing . Their sig data base is high . Probably no where near as high as some . Their Advanced Heuristics engine is second to none . This helps tremendously ! It would be nice to have the numbers but , there are so many that are not accounted for and NOD picks them up before they can be added to a database . Hope that helps .

 

then count them!

throw the list into file - convert comma to carriage return and then count the lines... it's not ROCKET SCIENCE...

 

lol . Too funny

 

38159 by the line count method

 

38159 is not all that many sigs. not to say kav is better but here is their count with extended bases I am sure nod has more than 38159 sigs. Their detection is to good.

 

I agree . Heuristics play a big part but , not that big . And I was told back a year or so FROM someone at Eset that there were more sigs then that back then .

 

That update list, webyourbusiness posted, only goes back to Dec. 18, 2001.
NOD32 - v.1.133 20011218

 

That sounds more like a believable scenario on the amount of sigs.

bigc

 

Yep, that's true.. that's the earliest udpate version I could get information on for our site, as that's the earliest data I could find on the eset site:

http://www.nod32.com/support/infoarchive.htm

I'm absolutely POSITIVE that the signatures capture more viruses than the number I provided... but I don't have their names!

regards

Greg

 

And who cares, anyway, as "signatures" mean different things to different AV's. Total # is meaningless.

 

Signatures are only meaningless until you contract a virus that heuristics cannot clean properly. Signatures are able to clean the registry entries and the like. Heuristics are really only good for detecting *possible* virii. That is why PROVEN signatures are important. And that is also why the original question is important. How many signatures are in NOD's database?

Neil

 

Would be of interest. I cannot see why this would be a problem to reveal.

Even those other AV's with good heuristics such as Dr Web and ArcaVir have disclosed their total malware database.

 

does this all mean that if NOD does find a virus in the OS it may not have the ability to clean like other AV's can?

 

Case 1: The heuristic blocks it - if it does not execute there is also nothing to clean

Case 2: It finds it via On-Demand Scan (for instance with AH) and does delete it (worm, backdoor, trojan)

Note: You cannot 'clean' a worm, trojan or backdoor that you still have a remaining executable - the worm, backdoor, trojan IS the full executable and has to be deleted full.

A remaining registry entry without the executable is not very nice, but it is not dangerous.

That said: once you deleted the malicious file (or cleaned a fileinfector) you are 'safe'

Did you understand what i mean ?

 

Case 1

Case 2 - would not want this and hope I would be in case 1 before it got to this or caught by BOClean. I think this would be with any AV and not just with NOD as there are steps to take to make sure and clean correctly.

I have never had anything (do not want anything either) but know some will report a virus/worm which other AV's cannot clean without manual or added cleaning tools intervention. I think I have made sense of this wee bit, I just accepted my AV was going to keep me safe and clean but it is only when I have installed a new one that I am asking now I want to be fully confident in NOD as I so much want to purchase.

Are 'Advanced Heuristics' a must?

 

Didn't mention heuristics, so not sure what that has to do with this particular fish we're frying.

Signatures aren't always able to clean malware. No one's saying signatures aren't important, but it's always nice to beat a straw man.

If you have one signature that detects 5 variants of the same virus in one AV, and five different signatures that detect the 5 variants in another, does that make the second AV better?

 

I suggest you open a new thread asking this question since it seems a bit off topic.

Hope this helps,

Chris