AVG gains new identity

January 15, 2009: Antivirus company AVG Technologies has acquired a developer of identity theft prevention software, Sana Security.

The purchase will add realtime protection against identity theft attempts to the AVG suite.

“Sana’s unique behavioural software, combined with AVG’s existing security technology, will provide the most comprehensive online identity protection in the industry, delivering continuous real-time protection,” said J.R. Smith, CEO of AVG Technologies.

Sana’s products use advanced behavioural technology to protect users’ personal information—including logins, passwords and account information—and other critical data stored on the computer. By mimicking the approach used by the human immune system to repel attackers, the software prevents hackers from capturing and transmitting sensitive information away from the user’s machine, compromising their online security.

Sana’s technology “learns” normal application behaviour by observing the way those applications interact with each other (their “code paths”). Vulnerabilities in the form of software bugs, user configuration errors,malware infections, and other forms of attack force applications down unexpected code paths. The behavioural technology recognises this misdirection and eliminates the threats before they can affect the user’s data.

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