Panda Software
Encyclopedia
Panda Security SL, formerly Panda Software, is a computer security
Computer security
Computer security is a branch of computer technology known as information security as applied to computers and networks. The objective of computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster, while allowing the information and property to...

 company founded in 1990 by Panda's former CEO, Mikel Urizarbarrena
Mikel Urizarbarrena
Mikel Urizarbarrena is the founder and former CEO of Antivirus Software maker Panda Software.He founded the company in 1990, along with his wife and two other friends, in the town of Durango, Biscay.His company began as a developer of educational software for driver teaching schools...

, in the city of Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

, Spain. Initially centered on the production of antivirus software
Antivirus software
Antivirus or anti-virus software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including but not limited to computer viruses, computer worm, trojan horses, spyware and adware...

, the company has expanded its line of applications to include firewall applications, spam and spyware detection applications, cybercrime prevention technology, and other system management and security tools for businesses and home users.

Panda's products include security tools for home users and enterprises, including protection against cybercrime and kinds of malware that can damage IT systems, such as spam, hackers, spyware, dialers and undesirable web content, as well as detection of WiFi intrusions. Its trademark technology, branded TruPrevent, is a set of proactive capabilities aimed at blocking unknown viruses and intruders. In 2007 Panda introduced a new collective intelligence
Collective intelligence
Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans and computer networks....

 security model, which utilizes grid computing
Grid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...

 for malware collection and detection.

Panda Security spots market opportunity with cloud and on November 2009, unveiled its first Cloud-Based Security Services for Home Users and SMBs

Overview

In 2005, Panda Security was the 4th largest antivirus vendor worldwide, with 3.2% of the marketplace. The company, whose shares were previously 100% held by Urizarbarrena, announced on 24 April 2007 the sale of 75% of its shares to Southern European investment group Investindustrial and private equity firm Gala Capital. On 30 July 2007 the company changed its name from Panda Software to Panda Security and Urizarbarrena was replaced by Jorge Dinares. Almost one year later, on 3 June 2008, amidst flagging sales, the board of directors voted to remove Dinares and replace him with Juan Santana, the CFO. After presiding over a 35% decrease in sales, and following two waves of layoffs in its Spain offices, Santana resigned in September 2011 and was replaced by José Sancho as acting CEO.

Panda Security is rated by Gartner analysts as a technology innovator. Technological milestones include its pioneering launch of security systems, such as the SaaS concept (Security as a Service) or antivirus solutions that provide protection from the cloud (cloud computing) and are based on what Panda calls Collective Intelligence, a security model Panda introduced on the market in 2007[8]

According to its CEO, the main benefit this security model provides is that it allows automatic scanning of threats instead of the manual scans carried out by other companies,], making it quicker and more efficient in malware detection.

Panda Security has subsidiaries in the USA, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, UK, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Japan. Additionally, it has franchises in another 44 countries.

The USA subidiary has had five management turnovers since 2007 before moving its headquarters to Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...

 in 2009,

Despite a renewed channel effort, as of January 2010, Panda is currently embroiled in a USD$50 million lawsuit with one of its channel partners. On 3 August 2010, a new office location in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...

 was publicly announced by Panda's CEO via his Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 account.

Panda Security competes in the antivirus industry against Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...

 Corp, Kaspersky, McAfee
McAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...

 Inc and Trend Micro
Trend Micro
Trend Micro Inc. is a computer security company. It is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and markets Trend Micro Internet Security, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security, OfficeScan, and other related security products and services...

 Inc, among others.

In late 2009 Panda Security created a partnership with Web of Trust to help fight against the war of viruses. http://www.mywot.com/en/press/panda-security-and-against-intuition-partner-to-offer-wot-the-community-based-safe-surfing-tool

TruPrevent Technologies

TruPrevent, which was introduced in 2003, is a set of technologies developed by Panda Security for proactive protection in home and corporate computers, as opposed to traditional antivirus products, which provide reactive protection.

Truprevent Technologies offers generic protection against many of the techniques most commonly used by new malware, and policies and rules are developed based on the new vulnerabilities that appear every day.

Due to the vast amount of new malware that appears every day in 2007 PandaLabs detected an average of 3,000 new samples a day, which has risen to 35,000 in 2009, Panda Security decided to develop a protection system that would automatically detect, scan and classify malware in real time. This security model presented in 2007 was called “Collective Intelligence” and is the basis of the new solutions that offer security from the cloud.

This technology is implemented in its 2009 and 2010 antivirus products for home users and in the new Panda Cloud Antivirus, which the company has classified as the first antivirus in History that provides protection from the cloud

These antivirus products only include the information about malware samples that cause most infections at any given moment, while the rest of the information is stored in Panda’s knowledge base. The antivirus connects to this knowledge base whenever necessary. This system is designed to offer real-time protection against thousands of new malware samples, use the community knowledge base to offer further protection and not to consume computer resources.

Tests

In the February 2010 tests conducted by AV Comparatives, Panda's detection rate ranked 3rd of the 20 vendors tested, its false positive rate ranked 16th.

Panda has not been tested by Virus Bulletin
Virus Bulletin
Virus Bulletin is a magazine about the prevention, detection and removal of malware and spam. It regularly features analyses of the latest virus threats, articles exploring new developments in the fight against viruses, interviews with anti-virus experts, and evaluations of current anti-malware...

 since 2002.

Panda has been tested by Checkvir for years. Over the past five years they have received a "Standard" rating at every test. They have achieved the "Advanced" rating twice.

In March 2010, Panda Security became the first vendor to receive an ICSA
International Computer Security Association
ICSA Labs began as NCSA . In its early days, NCSA focused almost solely on the certification of anti-virus software. Using the Consortia model, NCSA worked together with anti-virus software vendors to develop one of the first anti-virus software certification schemes...

 certification for a 100% cloud based offering.

Retail products

  • Panda Pro 2012
  • Panda Internet Security 2012
  • Panda Global Protection 2012
  • Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro
  • Panda Antivirus for Netbooks
  • Panda ActiveScan 2.0
  • Panda Security for Linux

Corporate products

  • Panda Security for Business
  • Panda Managed Office Protection
  • Panda Managed E-mail Protection
  • Panda Malware Radar
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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