Pioneering software to combat cybercrime better than ever before
Traditional antiviruses protect only against known malware variants. Established approaches such as scanners that use signatures to check for viruses, worms, Trojans and other malware are no longer able to protect devices because there are simply too many newly launched variants. This lack of security leaves end users, particularly SMEs and individuals, and ultimately the European economy, extremely vulnerable to attacks. In 2018, an estimated 500 million cyberattacks were carried out each month. Cybercrime costs over EUR 500 billion a year, continuing its upward trend. Attacks using ransomware, a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid, have increased by 300 % since 2015. The EU-funded TrueProactive project aimed to “transform the approach to identifying cyberthreats with a groundbreaking next-generation endpoint defence platform,” says coordinator Dmitriy Nazarenko. “It will be able to address the urgent needs of the cybersecurity industry.” The platform proactively detects and blocks new strains. Step change in network security management TrueProactive wants to modify the perception users have of next-gen antivirus technologies. “We should no longer think we’re protected because we’re told that we are,” he stresses. “If we were effectively protected, there wouldn’t be any headlines about global data leakages and substantial financial losses by leading companies.” Team members delivered a beta version of the software. This beta release was able to reject families of top ransomware threats like WannaCry, Petya and NotPetya on a pilot run at one of the biggest enterprises in Ukraine. Field tests confirmed the uniqueness of the TrueProactive approach in detecting next-gen viruses. The TrueProactive software has several benefits. It’s lightweight, utilising no more than 3 % of system resources while in use. It’s stable and doesn’t require user interaction when in operation. It successfully operates in both offline and online modes. To date, it’s the only antivirus software that can use a local server for activation and updates and never connect to the internet. In addition, the security solution doesn’t chase malware, but rather eradicates it. According to Nazarenko, the TrueProactive innovation will be the first to group viruses into virus families. This grouping greatly saves resources during operation. “When old school antiviruses spend 1 000 resource points, our solution will spend 1, and it will be more effective and much faster than any of the current market alternatives.” Now that the 3-month project is over, project partners are turning their attention to product development with respect to core architecture, processing apparatus and the genome database. They are ready to provide demo licences for real field tests. Europe is their focus region for these tests. The plan is to bring the product to market in 2021. Nazarenko envisions users who will stop living in “false safe mode.” He concludes: “Ultimately, our objective is to arrive at the day when TrueProactive software is meaningfully chosen by users for its main features: to provide a high level of defence and response against tomorrow’s e-criminals.”
Keywords
TrueProactive, software, security, viruses, antivirus, malware, cybercrime, ransomware
