Industry Computer software Headquarters Bilbao, Spain Founded 1990 | Website PandaSecurity.com Founder Mikel Urizarbarrena Type of business Private | |
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Products Antivirus, firewall
Spam and spyware detection
Security and management tools CEO Diego Navarrete (16 Jan 2014–) Subsidiaries Pav Germany GmbH, Panda Software, Inc. Profiles | ||
Panda security the cloud security company
Panda Security is a Spanish company specialized in creating IT security solutions. Initially centered on creating antivirus software, the company has since expanded its line of business to advanced cybersecurity services with technology for preventing cybercrime.
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Their patented technology TruPrevent is a set of proactive capabilities aimed at blocking unknown viruses; the Collective Intelligence model claims to be the first system that can automatically detect, analyze, and classify malware in real-time. The company claims that they have been the precursors to the new Adaptive Defense security model that assures the complete classification of all active processes on the system.
Panda Security products include security solutions for both businesses and home users, and provide protection tools for systems, networks, emails, and other private information for system management and control.
About the company
In 2005, Panda Security was the fourth largest antivirus vendor worldwide, with 3.2% of the marketplace. In November 2015 OPSWAT measured Panda Security's market share to be 3.6%. The company, whose shares were previously 100% held by Urizarbarrena, announced on 24 April 2007 the sale of 75% of its shares to Southern European investment group Investindustrial and private equity firm Gala Capital. On 30 July 2007 the company changed its name from Panda Software to Panda Security and Urizarbarrena was replaced by Jorge Dinares. Almost one year later, on 3 June 2008, amidst flagging sales, the board of directors voted to remove Dinares and replace him with Juan Santana, the CFO. Santana resigned in September 2011 and was replaced by José Sancho as acting CEO.
Panda Security is rated by Gartner analysts as a technology innovator. Technological milestones include its pioneering launch of security systems, such as the SaaS concept (Security as a Service) or antivirus solutions that provide protection from the cloud (cloud computing) and are based on what Panda calls Collective Intelligence, a security model Panda introduced on the market in 2007.
According to its CEO, the main benefit this security model provides is that it allows automatic scanning of threats instead of the manual scans carried out by other companies, making it quicker and more efficient in malware detection.
Panda Security has subsidiaries in the US, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, UK, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Japan. Additionally, it has franchises in another 44 countries. The US subsidiary has had five management turnovers since 2007 before moving its headquarters to Orlando, Florida in 2009,
In late 2009, Panda Security created a partnership with Web of Trust to help fight against the war of viruses.
Panda was previously embroiled in a lawsuit with one of its channel partners, External Technologies, Inc. In 2013, Panda prevailed in its lawsuit against External Technologies, recovering a judgment in excess of $100,000 and prevailing on all claims asserted by External against Panda. On 3 August 2010, a new office location in Menlo Park, California was publicly announced by Panda's CEO via his Twitter account.
In 2012, Panda Security was the tenth largest antivirus vendor worldwide, with 2.0% of the marketplace.
PandaSecurity is one of the two Spanish companies that appear on the 2013 Truffle Top 100 ranking for software developers in Europe.
Panda Security is one of the world's top ten leading software development and IT protection companies, according to the report from 2013 report La empresa española en el mundo, which was carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
Highlights of its technological achievements include being a pioneer in the launch of security systems such as SaaS (Security as a Service) and an antivirus that allows for protection from the cloud (cloud computing). These landmarks are based on what Panda refers to as Collective Intelligence, a security model that Panda presented to the marketplace in 2007.
The main benefit of this security model is that, according to Panda’s CEO, it allows for an automatic analysis of threats. This differs to the manual analysis of malware offered by rival companies, and allows Panda to offer a faster and more efficient detection of malware.
Panda Security competitors in the antivirus industry include Symantec Corp, Kaspersky, F-Secure Corporation, McAfee Inc. and Trend Micro Inc., amongst others.
In 2014, Panda Security was distributed by TriTech Distribution Limited in Hong Kong.
In 2015, Panda Security obtained the best rate protection in the Real World Protection Test by AV-Comparatives.
Panda Security awarded Company of the Year 2016 by leading Spanish newspaper el Suplemento for innovative work, growth outreach and history.
TruPrevent
TruPrevent, which was introduced in 2003, is a set of technologies developed by Panda Security for proactive protection in home and corporate computers, as opposed to traditional antivirus products, which provide reactive protection.
TruPrevent technologies offers generic protection against many of the techniques most commonly used by new malware, and policies and rules are developed based on the new vulnerabilities that appear daily.
Due to the vast amount of new malware that appears every day (in 2007 PandaLabs detected an average of 3,000 new samples a day, which had risen to 35,000 in 2009), Panda Security developed a protection system to automatically detect, scan and classify malware in real time. This security model presented in 2007 was called “Collective Intelligence” and is the basis of the new solutions that offer security from the cloud.
This technology is implemented in its 2009 and 2010 antivirus products for home users and in the new Panda Cloud Antivirus, which the company has classified as the first antivirus in history that provides protection from the cloud
These antivirus products only include the information about malware samples that cause most infections at any given moment, while the rest of the information is stored in Panda’s knowledge base. The antivirus connects to this knowledge base whenever necessary. This system is designed to offer real-time protection against thousands of new malware samples, use the community knowledge base to offer further protection and not to consume computer resources.
Adaptive Defense
The Adaptive Defense solution breaks the traditional security model by basing its security model on black lists and white lists. This represents a new concept built on the basis of behavior processes, not on previous classification like it was up until now.
This advanced system is based on the principles of artificial intelligence and Big Data in order to monitor, classify, and analyze all running processes. This assures the proactive detection of strange behaviors and advanced threats, from Cryptolocker to zero-day attacks, while providing features for response and remediation.
Panda Security's Adaptive Defense won best Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Solution award Computing Magazines Security Excellence Awards 2016.