Comodo acquires BOClean!

[Wheelie4]

Today Comodo Acquired BOClean (www.nsclean.com) . One of the oldest and most respected Anti Trojan companies around.

BOClean has a very effective engine and more importantly top notch expertise and people in the field. We are happy to announce that Kevin will be joining forces with Comodo and work with us to create world's best Anti malware/virus/trojan/spyware/rootkit product around for FREE!

Comodo is totally committed to create a world leading Anti-Malware product for FREE! We have now assembled a world class team of people who will take us to next level. So expect some good stuff from us.

thanks

Melih

PS: We will now make BOClean a free product and continue to deliver top notch support.

All we want to do is to continue the great tradition that Kevin & Nancy has successfully carried out and enable Kevin to make his products even better. He just has more resources to achieve it now.

Indeed, we are so very happy to have Kevin on our side. He now has a huge reosource pool he can tap into to make all his products better. We are simply enabling him to do more and faster

Comodo acquires BOClean

Kevins post at Wilders and comment about his sale to and joining of Comodo.

Back in 1998, Privacy Software (Nancy and I) birthed a product called BOClean. At the time, we did so for free as a new breed of Windows "virus" called "backdoors" emerged in mass quantities and were constructed in such a way that any non-technical "script kiddie" could readily take over the machines of innocent people and gain complete control of them. And while "Back Orifice" or "BO" was what we based our name on, there were earlier ones and we were absolutely dismayed to read that the traditional antivirus companies *refused* to cover them because they weren't "file infectors" or traditional "viruses."

When we tried to explain to them that these were even worse than "viruses," our commentaries fell on the deaf ears of an entire industry which was still applying the computer solutions of the early 1980's when the internet didn't yet exist as we know it in the middle of the 1990's. We gave the 1.0 version of BOClean away for free as a service to our existing NSClean and IEClean customers because we fully expected the antivirus industry to come to their senses soon and this "BOClean" would end up being a "novelty product" much the same as other "crisis solution" freebies we've done over the years such as "SockLock," "HTAStop" and others. BOY were WE wrong!

As time trudged on, some of these were picked up by the antiviruses, most were not. Other malware known as "spyware" came along and various antivirus-like "file scanners" arose to meet the need to about the same level of quality as that of the antiviruses. Folks became accustomed to "scanning their files" after the fact whereas we saw the need for something a bit more proactive in stopping them as soon as they began to run with an emphasis on studying the authors of the malware and their traits in order to do our very best to catch their "next move" before they made it. We also realized that hiring up people to help us do this as the number of these began to creep up became necessary and thus we had to convert BOClean from a free product to one that would bring in revenue to pay for additional people.

For BOClean to be useful and not shut off as most "file scanners" were typically required a very unique design. It had to be very lightweight, light on resources and yet had to be "zero touch" as far as the "desktop users" went. Our original customers were corporate "IT" departments who wanted to install this on their desktops to take care of "trojans" and other "malware" automatically since it became rather costly to deploy people to do this manually across organizations. But if we followed the traditional methods, BOClean would have become as unwieldy as most AVs and in the real world, many people do shut off or fail to update their antiviruses and end up with no protection at all.

As time went on, "stealth" methods became very popular among the various malcontents and since antiviruses were based on simple file pattern matching or at best "heuristics" and "unpacking engines," they improved somewhat but still were easily gotten around at the file detection level as a result of many obscuring techniques. However, when bad stuff actually went to run, it had to be resolved in memory to that which could actually run. We designed BOClean to catch whatever got past "active guards" and other techniques of the antiviruses after the antivirus/scanner programs already had their chance and let it run anyway.

In the past couple of years, a literal explosion of malware has occurred. More and more resources were required in order to maintain our original promises, yet revenue kept declining. Our corporate customers also were subject to tightening of IT budgets and since the AV's were doing more than they were before, sales began falling off in the past few years because their own budgets forced them to buy one product and if machines still got hosed, the solution was to just wipe the drive entirely.

And so, we got trapped between more and more nasties every day and less and less money coming in. It eventually hit a point this past year where I was working between 28 and 40 hours in a single shift, catching some sleep and going back at it again struggling to keep up. In the meantime, BOClean itself has languished from a lack of time to add improvements and new features. FORTUNATELY, the existing BOClean has continued to work adequately to continue doing its job. But it needs work, it needs new code and "Vista" was the straw that broke our back.

Nancy has already explained that we tried to shop BOClean around to a number of companies who make "file scanners" of various sorts however our own design is SO unique that many just didn't get it and the few that did understand what we are doing were too concerned about the potential cost of "intergrating" BOClean into their existing products without even examining its innards and understanding them.

When we were first approached by COMODO, I have to admit that I was swayed by the opinions of the so-called "experts" and was quite skeptical of them when they expressed interest in working with us, partnering, or perhaps acquiring BOClean themselves. In fact, it wasn't until I MET Melih in person that I came to realize just how WRONG the judgements of COMODO among the public in these forums truly are.

I grew up in the Bronx. I can spot a "sidewalk act" a mile away. My own background is in electronics engineering. So is Melih's. Anyone who's been angered by my "off the cuff" remarks over the years should realize that "uber-geeks" may not be the ones you want out in public talking about technical stuff because the tendency of personalities such as my own are "I don't have time for bullsquirt" and it's sometimes very hard to take some concepts and get them across without coming off like some arrogant, condescending "know it all." Lord knows I've done that too often myself.

What I found in Melih is someone with a GENUINE commitment to always doing the right thing for everybody but we both march to our own drummers and can be rather awkward in getting a point across without likely insulting someone fully meaning not to. I also found that Melih is VERY sincere in using his resources for highly altruistic purposes just like I did when I had money coming in. I *fully* believe in Melih and COMODO and I believe anyone who believes in Nancy and I should step back, give us a chance for a little while and see if you're not as surprised as I am.

COMODO's products are new and in a constant state of improvement. Melih asked me to come aboard to not only continue to maintain BOClean, but also to assist in greatly improving their antivirus product until it is as well-regarded as BOClean has been and then from there, make it better than ANY other "file scanner." Melih also has committed to KEEPING BOClean the same concept that it always has been, and a SEPARATE option for COMODO users. Instead of a "suite," Melih and I have agreed to allow folks to choose whatever they feel they need from a smorgasbord of what makes THEM feel comfortable for their own needs. In other words, BOClean will REMAIN as it is, it will only improve. And finally I will be able to get back to all of that code I've wanted to write to bring BOClean forward. At the same time, I now get a collection of extremely talented analysts who will be working directly for ME. This in turn will change BOClean's once or twice a day updates to probably hourly or perhaps even more often.

And COMODO's antivirus will also be MY responsibility along with a separate group of analysts and some very seriously talented programmers and will take off in an entirely new direction from that of traditional antiviruses just as BOClean did eight years ago. People have become used to relying on 1980's solutions and more and more people and companies seem to think there's a gold mine in yet another scanner. What I'm bringing to COMODO and they're going to give me the resources to accomplish will be a TRUE eye-opener.

Dealing with nasties AFTER the fact is as tired as 1980's music. Solutions to keep from getting infected with anything bad is what this entire industry SHOULD have been doing in the 90's and it's sad to see that the same old tired stuff remains the answer today. I'm VERY pleased and confident after several days with Melih and my new teams that the best is yet to come. And SOON! At least as soon as we can put together the new code that's been sitting into a 4.23 ... if there were actually any earth-shattering changes, I'd bet COMODO would want to call it 5.something!

So for anyone that's still doubting, I wouldn't have "stepped in it" if I didn't have ABSOLUTE faith in WHO and WHAT I'm stepping in. Give us a few weeks, a few months ... I'm staking my reputation and my LIFE on all this. And for the wangers and doubters, get over yerselves. I finally get to EAT again!

Seriously, folks ... there will be *no* downside!

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