LiveSide - News blog : Microsoft Security Essentials

MSE after one week: 1.5 mil downloads, 535k infected machines

Kip Kniskern — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:32:00 GMT

A post on Thursday on the Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog reports that not only were there 1.5 million downloads of MSE, but almost 4 million malware detections from 535,752 machines were encountered!

According to the blog post:

Microsoft Security Essentials is available in 8 languages and 19 markets at RTM, which covers a lot of the PC using world. The geographic distribution of detections so far still closely follows the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta countries, and is ramping up in other countries that use the 8 languages.

Just as interesting is the tidbit that some 44% of installs were on Windows 7 machines (some 3 weeks before being released to General Availability, even!):

Check out the blog post for more on what kind of malware is being detected in what markets, very interesting.

You can download Microsoft Security Essentials (requires Windows Genuine validation) and try it out yourself, provided you’re in one of the 19 current markets.

Microsoft Security Essentials: some first impressions (and some FUD)

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Microsoft released its new free anti-malware product, Microsoft Security Essentials, this week, and the reviews are starting to roll in. We’ve been using MSE since the first beta, and have found it to be unobtrusive, simple, and a refreshing alternative from the constant churn coming from some of the other free AV services. Of course a quiet AV solution that doesn’t catch malware isn’t of much use, but according to some studies posted around the web, MSE is at least on par with the other AV services.

Not that those services are all that happy about it. In a post the Wednesday on Ars Technica, a Symantec spokesman downplayed MSE:

"Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is a stripped down version of their old OneCare product which was poorly rated by industry experts and users alike. From a security perspective, this Microsoft tool offers reduced defenses at a critical point in the battle against cybercrime. Unique malware and social engineering tricks fly under the radar of traditional signature-based technology alone—which is what is employed by free security tools such as Microsoft's"

In fact, however, MSE is based on ForeFront Security, Microsoft’s enterprise security solution, and doesn’t rely on the old OneCare technology. OneCare earned some early bad press that it was never able to recover from, but also a move to a common ForeFront platform allows Microsoft to use the free MSE to gather information on malware in the wild which could then be used to tweak the enterprise offerings.

In a separate post, Ars Technica also posted their first impressions.

Other, more fact inspired reviews have shown good results for MSE. PC World reports on independent AV researcher AV-Test.org results on MSE, which it called “very good”:

The first test put Security Essentials in the ring against more than 3,700 viruses, Trojans and worms culled from the most recent WildList, a collection of threats actively attacking computers. "All samples were successfully detected and blocked during our on-demand and on-access tests," Marx said in an e-mail today.

The second test sicced Security Essentials on a much larger set of malware. Of the 545,3444 malware samples in that collection, Microsoft's software nailed 536,535, resulting in what Marx characterized as a "very good detection score" of 98.4%.

In a follow-up test of adware and spyware detection -- Security Essentials also includes anti-spyware scanning -- Microsoft's software spotted 12,935 out of 14,222 samples, for a 90.9% accuracy rate.

A few other MSE details: first, a blog post on the Genuine Windows blog points out that MSE is available only legitimate copies of Windows, and that MSE will check to make sure the copies are indeed genuine, and a post on the Register is reporting “black hat” SEO activity on searches for Microsoft Security Essentials (and, incidentally, Google Wave), according to Websense. The black hats, trying to take advantage of increased search activity for the products, have flooded search engines to move their more unscrupulous AV products up the search rankings. A quick check here on Bing and Google show that MSE is in the top of the results, but always good to be careful.

You can download Microsoft Security Essentials directly from Microsoft.

Microsoft Security Essentials available for download

Kip Kniskern — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:10:29 GMT

Yesterday Sunshine told you that MSE would be available today (September 29), and indeed, as of 8am or so Pacific Standard Time, MSE is ready for download

The new version, 1.0.1611.0, installs easily over the latest beta version (1500), here, it only took a few seconds. There don’t appear to be any significant UI changes, and we’ve been running MSE since the beta began with no issues at all. Of course the proof with any malware protection is in how well it actually captures malware, something we try to avoid anyway, but it’s nice not to be bothered all the time by security software.

You can learn more about Microsoft Security Essentials on their website, check out the system requirements (XP SP2 and above, etc) , or visit the Malware Protection Center

Microsoft Security Essentials Available For Download Tomorrow, Sept 29

Sunshine — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:57:46 GMT

After reporting that Microsoft Security Essentials will be final in the coming weeks only a week ago, we can now tell you that it will be available tomorrow, September 29.

Microsoft Security Essentials, independently certified by West Coast Labs, is backed by the company’s global security response team and is built on the same award-winning core security technology found in the company’s security solutions for businesses. It requires no registration, trials or renewals and will be available for Windows XP SP2 or SP3, Windows Vista and Windows 7 including Windows XP mode on both x32 and x64 PCs.

Microsoft Security Essentials will be available in eight languages and 19 countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

More information about Microsoft Security Essentials and the product download is available at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.

PressPass

Microsoft Security Essentials Final Edition In Coming Weeks

Sunshine — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:03:54 GMT

Neowin reports that Microsoft's Security Essentials team has confirmed that the final version of Microsoft Security Essentials will be made available in the coming weeks.

Microsoft Security Essentials is Microsoft's free anti-virus and anti-spyware product that replaces Microsoft's paid Windows Live OneCare subscription service which was withdrawn earlier this year. In an email to beta testers the team thanked testers for their participation and encouraged them to upgrade to version 1.0.1500.0 of the beta to ensure a "smooth experience".

Microsoft Security Essentials went into beta on June 23rd this year.

Microsoft Security Essentials upgrade available

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:16:00 GMT

(UPDATE) Apparently sometime late last night the new builds (and indeed all downloads, and the download link in the sidebar) have been removed from Connect. The plot thickens.

In somewhat stealth mode, Microsoft Security Essentials, or MSE, posted a new upgrade on Connect today. If it wasn’t for the eagle eye of Emil over at Ars Technica, we would never have noticed. The new build, or more precisely, builds are available either from Microsoft Update (1.0.1500.0) or Connect (1.0.1501.0).

What is unusual is that there is no word of any kind from Microsoft on the nature or the availability of the new updates, other than that they appeared. Our old friend and MVP Steve Boots posted in the MSE Forums, confirming the updates:

Confirmed. It was made available within the last hour.
You should be receiving automatic notification of the availability of the updated version by MSE within the next week, typically earlier if you reboot the machine and it does the check for updates.
The installer files will be updated on Connect today.

In another post on the forum, Steve and others note that you don’t have to go to Connect or MS Update, but can just tell MSE to upgrade:

While there is a dearth of information coming from Microsoft on the update, forum posters haven’t found much new other than the systray icon has changed from blue to green , and that the icon now turns red , a la Windows Live OneCare when real time protection is turned off. One poster noted a speed increase in file scanning, but that may be subjective.

Anyway good work by Emil spotting this, go and get your MSE upgrade now.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta Full?

Sunshine — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:02:41 GMT

If you thought let’s download Microsoft Security Essentials today, you are too late! Well, at least for now if you wanted the US-EN version:

We are not sure about the availability in Israel, the People's Republic of China or Brazil but if not full already they surely will be soon. Do you know? Let us know in the comments below.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta
Microsoft Security Essentials Forums

Previous articles about Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta Available Now, Capped At 75,000

Sunshine — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:23:23 GMT

Microsoft Security Essentials (Morro) Beta is now available for download, as announced earlier.

However take note of the following:

The beta is only available to those in the US, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) or Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese)
Downloads will be capped at 75,000 (might still be changed)
Distribution of the beta is through Microsoft Connect, so you will need to be registered there with your Windows Live ID
Before you can download you will have to fill in a nomination survey (7 questions)

The beta is available in 32- and 64 bits for Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista; Windows 7 (Beta or Release Candidate) and will require WGA validation.

Microsoft Security Essentials (Morro) public beta announced

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:22:34 GMT

Microsoft has taken the wraps off of its successor to the soon to be discontinued Windows Live OneCare, announcing today that Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), a free to download “superset” of Windows Defender will become available on June 23. Ed Bott and Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet have details, but here are some of the highlights:

First, the company line on what the new software entails:

To address consumer demand for quality anti-malware protection that’s easy to get and doesn’t slow down system performance, Microsoft Security Essentials has been designed as a no-cost anti-malware solution that provides consumers with quality protection from threats including viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. It will be offered directly from Microsoft and has been designed to be hassle-free and is focused on delivering quality protection that’s easy to use.

MSE will be available for download starting at 9am PDT on Tuesday June 23rd in the US, Brazil, and Israel from http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials
If those sound like a somewhat random choice of countries, well a team in Israel worked on MSE, and Brazil apparently has lots of unprotected Windows machines in use.
China will also be an early target market for MSE, with a version in Simplified Chinese expected soon.
Unlike Windows Live OneCare, MSE will not require a Windows Live ID, or any personal information. It will however, require WGA validation
Microsoft is saying that MSE will ship “before the end of the year”.

Windows Live OneCare for a time fared poorly in independent tests, but Ed Bott notes that the latest versions of OneCare have been doing much better:

A new study (May 2009) by the independent AV-Comparatives group gave Microsoft OneCare (which shares the same engine and signatures as MSE) its highest (Advanced+) rating. Only 3 of the 16 products in the test earned that rating. Microsoft’s technology scored second in the accuracy ratings, behind AVIRA but ahead of AVG, Symantec, McAfee, and a dozen other products. And on the crucial measure of delivering the fewest false positives, Microsoft stood far ahead of the pack, delivering the fewest false positives of any program tested.

However, and probably at least partly because of its poor showing in the AV-Comparatives tests, Windows Live OneCare was never a big seller. One advantage to free anti-malware solutions is that they provide a large sample set across the install base, something that OneCare wasn’t delivering and MSE may provide. Gathering info on a large sample base of malware will not only help to improve MSE, but Microsoft’s enterprise level ForeFront offerings, as well.