A Cloud is a Container of Fog that Obscures Vision

I’m sitting in a presentation at the Virus Bulletin conference in Geneva. The topic is “Why in the Cloud scanning is not a solution. The presentation is done by Andreas Marx and Maik Morgenstern from AV-Test.org.

What they found in extensive testing is that “Cloud” scanners do not have a detection advantage over traditional solutions. In one example they showed where a product had no normal or cloud detection, but did have detection in tradition beta signatures.  In some cases cloud based products added detection much later than a traditional solutions.

AV-Test found that the size of the data bases on the desktop did not decrease and memory use on the local PC was not improved be the use of “Cloud” based systems.

At times, due to a variety of factors, the “Cloud” based systems are unavailable due to connectivity problems.

“Cloud” is a marketing term. If you think that drinking the right brand of beer makes you sexier you’re going to love “Cloud” marketing. If you think for yourself you look at the technologies and ask “Does a ‘cloud’ based solution actually perform better?”

When you see “Cloud computing”, remember, this is a hype based approach to marketing when they don’t want to tell you the technical merits of the products, they want you to think that the right beer makes you sexier!

Adding Internet components (that’s what cloud really means) can enhance a product, but does not automatically do so.

 While using the word “cloud”, Mihai continued to explain what the technology is that is being used, how and why it used. This was an exceptionally well balanced presentation that acknowledged that sometimes you need to be on the local system and in some cases you can offload the work to the internet (the cloud).

One of the big problems with using “the cloud” is that at times the product may actually upload a file from your computer to the internet. This has very serious privacy implications. Virus scanners make mistakes at times. In this case a file that is proprietary or contains sensitive information may be uploaded and the customer may not want that file to leave their network.

Mihai had a really good point on one of his slides. He was talking about how his system works and the bullet point said “Send the data to the cloud”. What this means is upload the data to a server on the internet. Why not just say “send the information to a server on the internet”?
 
In Mihai’s case he was simply using the jargon and the technical audience understands he means sending data to a server on the internet. When marketing gets a hold of the term “cloud” they mean “our beer will make you sexier” ?

Mihai has some valid examples of how using the internet can be advantageous, but also pointed out that there are some significant technical difficulties and privacy issues. To some extent, all AV vendors use “the cloud” in their products. ESET’s Threatsense.Net was using “the cloud” before it became the darling term of marketing.

As is the case in most all areas of computing, there is a lot that can still be leveraged using the internet, but there are still a lot of obstacles to overcome.

Randy Abrams
Director of Technical Education

ESET Global