We need security companies too quit shortchanging us.

I can’t help but wonder why security software companies aren’t using more of the protection methods available to them than they are. It’s time for sandbox technology and memory monitoring software to become a part of the standard tools available to us to protect our systems. I see no reason that companies like Diamond CS can write programs like ProcessGuard while companies like ZoneAlarm, Norton, and McAfee continue to hand us the same old methods that are becoming far too vulnerable to being compromised.

For any of you who aren’t familiar with ProcessGuard it’s a program that monitors the actions of all the programs running on your computer and prevents certain actions and processes from running with out permission. Sometimes it is a pest because of its messages but it is nice to realize that it is almost impossible for a program or process to run with out permission. It tells you every time something tries to do any action that is questionable or shouldn’t be happening. While it’s not perfect it works very well and provides an additional layer of protection that greatly increases security on a system running the program.

So if a little company like Diamond CS can provide such protection why aren’t other security companies also providing similar protection? I understand that not everyone would want to be bothered by a program like this but it should be available for those of us who want to use it.

Sandbox technology has the same problem of being used very little by the security software industry. To see my antivirus software detect a virus and quarantine it leads me to wonder why programs like Internet Explorer aren’t contained in a protected section of memory. Now we can even buy programs to run numerous “virtual machines” on the same computer without them disturbing each other but we can’t isolate the processes of a program to prevent it from running amuck on our machine. Strange isn’t it !

I currently run Windows XP and Red Hat Linux on the same machine at the same time with each OS running and sharing the resources of the computer without any problem. Each OS runs in a virtual machine that is configurable to allow for the amount of memory and hardware resources that it needs without affecting the other OS at all. If this is possible why can’t we use this method to protect our systems from malware and viruses?

It’s time that we as consumers start demanding that the best technology and methods are made available to provide us the protection we need and deserve. The security software companies are continuing to shove old outdated technology and solutions at us while raking in the profits. We need to demand that it stop and that they start using some creativity and quit ripping us off.