

Ask HN: How to start Antivirus business - zerr

from scratch?<p>I mean, software/tech aside, how does one get virus signatures?<p>Is there some repository, paid or free?<p>Your anecdotal experiences would be very interesting as well, in case anyone here runs some AV business.
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bediger4000
The old Vx Heavens website had a lot of stuff in it:

<http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7066921/>

Also, avoid Sophos' grave mistakes: read Tavis Ormandy on Sophos code:

<http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/sophail.pdf>
<https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/sophailv2.pdf>

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stevekemp
There are three distinct parts to this:

* Getting access to samples - should be simple via your favourite torrent site. * Writing a decent engine. Tricky, but not impossible if you've got access to the low-level APIs and the technical skills. * Getting reviewed/taken seriously.

The sad truth is few people will pay for a new antivirus tool, especially one
with no proven provenance, support team, and real world accuracy. (i.e. You
can block all known samples easily, but fail on new viruses/trojans.)

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zerr
Yes, besides aqcuiring existing virus database, I'm as well interested how
updating of this database happens. Discovering new viruses, malware, etc..
creating signatures from it.

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jewel
clamav is GPL and has a virus database. I used it at a previous job to scan
email and a samba file share.

I couldn't find a download link but if you install freshclam it will download
the signatures for you.

