Anti-exploit protection for vulnerable systems

Panda Security has developed a new technology that strengthens its security solutions and detects viruses that no other security company is able to detect. The aim is to protect even those systems that are recognized within the industry as vulnerable, having reached their EOL (End Of Life), like Windows XP for example. Those systems no longer receive security updates and may have vulnerabilities that can be taken advantage of through exploits.

Adaptive Defense 360 detects and neutralizes malware like Blackhole or Redkit that exploits zero-day vulnerabilities (in Java, Adobe, MS Office, etc.) to infect computers. To do that, it uses a three-layered detection/protection approach that analyzes how exploits behave instead of their morphology.

In the first layer, Adaptive Defense 360 provides passive protection against exploits by leveraging well-known technologies such as DEP, ASLR, SEHOP, Bottom Up Randomization and others.

In the second layer, the solution runs heuristic scans to find out if a process has been exploited by malware designed to take advantage of a software vulnerability ('exploits'). This layer is capable of detecting ROP, Stack pivot and other strategies used by exploits to bypass protection systems and run malicious code.

The third layer performs a behavioral analysis to detect the execution of malicious code by an exploited process. To do that, the solution performs contextual behavioral analyses locally by using the knowledge accumulated on Panda Security's Collective Intelligence platform.

This three layered approach allows Adaptive Defense 360 to effectively protect systems with known vulnerabilities.