Antivirus in the cloud: Is remote security remotely secure?

Hitman Pro 3.5 is a lightweight anti-malware program that can be run directly from a hard disk, a USB thumb drive, a CD or any other way you can think of. It doesn't need installing, so within a couple of clicks after firing up the .exe file you're being scanned. And this is where things get interesting.

Interesting, because for each file flagged by the software as having the potential to unleash binary smallpox, a signature is created and uploaded securely to Hitman's severs, where it's analysed by several companies' antivirus engines to see whether it's a known danger or not.

For completely unknown threats, the file itself is encrypted, compressed and uploaded for analysis. We spoke to Hitman to ensure no-one was peeking at these uploaded files, and we were informed the entire process is automated, with no human eyes viewing these uploaded files. After all this, you review what diseases your files have, and Hitman offers to clean them.

Uploading questionable files

Although your files are being scanned by multiple engines to ensure all disease-ridden executables are snatched out of harm's way, however, it offers no real-time background monitoring for new viruses. It's also completely useless if you're not connected to the Internet -- it simply refuses to run.

So without real-time protection, and without offline functionality for emergencies, it's going to be best used hand-in-hand with another product. But it's a valuable tool to have on a thumb drive for emergencies or for daily scanning of an underpowered netbook.

Next: Scan your entire computer from a Web site...