RENO, Nevada—Bytware, Inc., developer of the award-winning StandGuard Anti-Virus solution for OS/400 and i5/OS, announced today that the application has moved to version 5.31. This move officially marks the launch of the Object Integrity Scanning feature that the company announced last November. StandGuard Anti-Virus 5.31 with OIS is available immediately. Object Integrity Scanning (OIS) gives StandGuard Anti-Virus the ability to alert iSeries managers to changes made to IBM’s digital signatures by patched programs. Many applications modify the operating system in order to achieve functionality not available on a given release of the OS. Regardless of whether a “patched” program does something good or something bad, such programs can create potential problems for the integrity of the operating system.

Building upon object integrity and digital signature APIs that IBM has included in OS/400 since V5R1, OIS provides an easy way to identify patched programs and modifications to the operating system, allowing managers to decide what action — if any — they should take. In addition to being key to a healthy iSeries, awareness of modifications to the system is an important aspect of compliance with new regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

Version 5.31 also incorporates various enhancements that have been made to StandGuard Anti-Virus since the release of version 5.30 in June of 2004.

StandGuard Anti-Virus is the award-winning native virus scanner for OS/400 and i5/OS. Designed specifically for the iSeries and powered by McAfee’s industry leading scanning engine, StandGuard Anti-Virus provides the power to ensure total coverage of computer networks to protect against viruses, Trojans, and malicious code and programs, even finding viruses that PC-based solutions simply cannot.

For more information on StandGuard Anti-Virus and OIS, visit
http://www.bytware.com/products/av/ or contact Bytware Sales at 775.851.2900.

RENO, Nevada—Bytware, Inc., developer of the award-winning StandGuard Anti-Virus solution for OS/400 and i5/OS, announced today the addition of a new “Object Integrity Scanning” feature to the native iSeries scanner. Object Integrity Scanning (OIS) gives StandGuard Anti-Virus the ability to alert iSeries managers to changes made to IBM’s digital signatures by patched programs. Many applications modify the operating system in order to achieve functionality not available on a given release of the OS. Regardless of whether a “patched” program does something good or something bad, such programs can create potential problems for the integrity of the operating system.

As a recent IT Jungle article by Alex Woodie points out, “running patched programs presents risks. The potential negative effects of running patched programs range from being merely a nuisance to posing a real security problem.” In some cases patched programs can even create security exposures.

Building upon object integrity and digital signature APIs that IBM has included in OS/400 since V5R1, OIS provides an easy way to identify patched programs and modifications to the operating system, allowing managers to decide what action — if any — they should take. In addition to being key to a healthy iSeries, awareness of modifications to the system is an important aspect of compliance with new regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

OIS will become available on December 1, 2004, and will initially be available only on V5R3. Versions for V5R2 and V5R1 will be released at a later date. OIS is an added feature to StandGuard Anti-Virus. There is no additional charge for the tool. Current users of StandGuard Anti-Virus V5R3M0 will receive the tool through the program’s automatic update feature, and shipments of StandGuard Anti-Virus V5R3M0 after December 1 will include the tool.

StandGuard Anti-Virus is the award-winning native virus scanner for OS/400 and i5/OS. Designed specifically for the iSeries and powered by McAfee’s industry leading scanning engine, StandGuard Anti-Virus provides the power to ensure total coverage of computer networks to protect against viruses, Trojans, and malicious code and programs.

For more information on StandGuard Anti-Virus and OIS, visit http://www.bytware.com/products/av/ or contact Bytware Sales at 775.851.2900.

A massive attack on the World Wide Web has been underway affecting thousands of popular websites. Simply visiting an affected page can cause users to become infected with a Trojan horse that can allow hackers to obtain passwords and other critical information from remote systems.SearchSecurity.com has reported on the issue: “A widespread Internet attack has hit thousands of Web sites in the past week, planting malware on vulnerable machines that may be designed to steal credit card and other information then marketed to organized identity theft markets, according to government officials and information security experts.” Read the full SearchSecurity.com story.

Builder.com has also identified the source of the attack in an e-mail security brief: “An attack launched this week by crackers was nipped in the bud on Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code for the attack. However, compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers’ PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached.” Visit Builder.com for the most recent information.

Bytware urges all system administrators and managers to ensure that scanning engines and DAT files are up-to-date.

For more information about iSeries virus protection, visit the main StandGuard Anti-Virus page