Indian Govt Launches Free Anti-Virus & Anti-Malware Solution for PC & Mobiles

[Deleted member 2913]

I think it is a good move, useful tools, especially AppSamvid with the whitelisting approach is a step in the right direction.

Yeah, hope they continue to improve & better it with every release...

 

[vemn]

I think it's a great move and an example for other countries.

Yeah totally agree that it's a great move but I doubt adoption rate will be high.

Most people will probably relate and having bad images of, for example, phones or thumbdrives of the Great Wall of C hacking users info, Gov agencies (or things like NSA) tapping stuff from commoners etc.
Free gifts... from Gov somemore... is kinda scary some times. Haha

 

[Rolo]

That doesn't apply to India. It's a given for America but things are socialist and people-centric in India not money-centric.

Socialism is society-centric (hence the term) rather than centered on the individual.

People can be "money-centric", socialists and capitalists alike and one's preferred style of government doesn't, on its own, indicate one's views on money; one's own integrity does.

...which goes to the issue here with government-sponsored software and whether it could be trusted. That goes to trust in the Indian government, of which I have no knowledge of so I cannot speak on it beyond the point that the Indian government already censors the Internet, so "freedom" and "privacy" are already not absolute here.

 

[codswollip]

I think it's a great move and an example for other countries.

IDK. It depends on how well you trust your government (and I'm not judging India here). But rhetorically, would you knowingly install a security tool freely provided by the U.S. NSA on your pc?

 

[Solarquest]

IDK. It depends on how well you trust your government (and I'm not judging India here). But rhetorically, would you knowingly install a security tool freely provided by the U.S. NSA on your pc?

Of course if they but a backdoor to spy it's a shame, if not it's laudable.

 

[Parsh]

I'll primarily be mentioning about how technically this will be beneficial to the crowd...

The most prominent among them is Free Bot Removal Tool, which would be provided in association with QuickHeal
M-Kavach is the name of the anti-virus tool for mobile phones
USB Pratirodh is the name of the tool for cleaning storage devices like USBs, external hard-disk and memory cards.
AppSamvid is a desktop based whitelisting solution, only for Windows OS.
Besides, there is a specialised tool for detecting and cleaning malicious HTML & JavaScript files in the browser as well, called Browser JSGuard.

USB Pratirodh - USB mass storage device control solution:
Device Control
User Authentication
Secure Storage (encryption)
Malware Detection

It seems that the Indian Govt. has planned the release of tools for interesting scenarios, addressing the common threatscape for
- common internet users
- newbies to technology, since digitization in India is booming quick
- non cyber-aware employees, be it public or private sector
And some tools bring necessary control features like Whitelisting, USB lockdown, special HTML & Scripts cleaners. Good additions over general AV knowledge users have.
Basically, some not so addressed security measures will now be used by more and more users (especially for countries like India).
It may not be something revolutionary and competing to famous tools available, but can prove to be some nice modular tools for supplementary usage for everyone.

So they have time to spend money on security products which we don't even need yet real problems

Well it's pretty much needed in India. Tens of thousands of internet users added every year, this initiative will atleast bring some security insight to them. Most of the new initiatives have scaled well and this too should reach a greater crowd than the smaller bands of citizens using plain AV solutions currently.
"India to have 160 million smartphone users by 2017" - the phone protection can fare well here too. Many lower and lower-middle class people adopted smartphones recently, some will definitely be enlightened and benefited by the news.

eah totally agree that it's a great move but I doubt adoption rate will be high.
Most people will probably relate and having bad images of, for example, phones or thumbdrives of the Great Wall of C hacking users info, Gov agencies (or things like NSA) tapping stuff from commoners etc.

This shouldn't be the case here The motives and stance differ. It won't be difficult for many people in India to accept these.
It's on people to realise the need for the same. They may then adopt them or other similar tools and practices. Seeing the acceptance, some native security firms may elevate their product offerings by providing similar features in their own products. In any way, the security scenario is bound to improve. QuickHeal is a well received product. It did well in Cruelsister's tests.

I think it is a good move, useful tools, especially AppSamvid with the whitelisting approach is a step in the right direction.

Sure! And it is bundled with a heuristic engine to gain confidence on which files to whitelist, which updaters to trust etc.

 

[Rolo]

threatscape

heh..maybe they should call their suite, "Threatscape Navigator"

 

[RVS2]

Socialism is society-centric (hence the term) rather than centered on the individual.

People can be "money-centric", socialists and capitalists alike and one's preferred style of government doesn't, on its own, indicate one's views on money; one's own integrity does.

...which goes to the issue here with government-sponsored software and whether it could be trusted. That goes to trust in the Indian government, of which I have no knowledge of so I cannot speak on it beyond the point that the Indian government already censors the Internet, so "freedom" and "privacy" are already not absolute here.

Don't want to make this a policy/govt discussion, but anyway, socialism has a different annotation in India, money centric doesn't apply to govt's themselves but to their policy push, and Indian internet access is not censored...I haven't seen any restrictions, don't know where you got that, unless it's examples of obscure antagonistic elements which would get blocked anywhere. Privacy is completely absent for the majority of internet users in this age, freedom is not guaranteed either but much more likely in democratic nations. There'll be incidents where freedom is challenged all over the world, not just an Indian thing.
The free antimalware is provided for helping securing the recent rise in digital payments, for people who don't actively take interest in internet security ie most of them.

 

[RVS2]

In my post, I didn't specify any government, I was talking about any government-affiliated security programs.

And believe me, many governments overtly and blatantly spy on internet users.
Russia tightens Internet controls, makes it easier to spy on citizens, critics say | Europe | DW.COM | 02.09.2015
[Updated] Security firm reportedly finds spyware on Chinese Android phones, including Blu devices sold in the US

I personally would not be sure about using it because free govt programs are usually a step behind commercial security.

 

[LukeNukesEm]

An AV made by the Indian govt! So excited, sounds trustworthy! But seriously, echoing what mal1 said, there is definitely back doors in that.

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

I know it's not on topic, but it has to be corrected anyway- the internet in India is NOT a governmental monopoly in any sense. There are many, many ISP's consisting of both Private and publicly traded companies. Also some aren't even based in India- Vodafone (really nice dividend stock, btw) is India's number 2 ISP and is a British multinational company.

Spot on CS
On a side note, this is also a great chance for the not so "tech advanced" people of India to get their feet wet
and learn a little about security.
Good job India