Microsoft Security Essentials – Beta

This post was written by admin on June 28, 2009
Posted Under: Antimalware, Antivirus, Free PC Security, Free Program

Microsoft has released the Microsoft Security Essentials beta program which is designed to replace Windows Live OneCare at no cost and was previously codenamed 'Morro'.

Initial release was limited to 75,000 downloads to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).

MS Security Essentials is a combined antivirus and antimalware package which runs on Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (including Beta or Release Candidate) systems as well as 32 bit and 64bit systems.

The final version is expected to be released toward the end of 2009, probably to coincide with the release of Windows 7 in October.

Microsoft is restricting the MS Security Essentials download in both the beta and the final version, to PCs running Genuine Windows which has been authenticated via the Windows Validation Tool.

It requires no registration or subscription and it will remain a free program to compete with existing freeware vendors who have long left Microsoft behind.

The program offers realtime antivirus and antimalware protection with the promise of regular updates with definitions being updated three times a day.

There is a small icon that sits in the System Tray to let users know that it is active and automatic updates can be selected through the 'Settings' panel.

This is NOT a 'cloud-based' application but uses a dynamic signature service and the ability to query the signature service database when finding new malware, viruses and rootkits and uses the same engine as OneCare and MS Forefront Client Security.

It is low on resources in normal use but quite heavy on resources when carrying out a full scan.

Having used this and visited several malicious sites it picked up some of the obvious malware and removed it successfully.

It claims to do this in a few seconds, but in reality I found it to take a few minutes.

There are rogue applications that it stopped from running once downloaded and it also removed trojans and spyware, but it also left some behind, which is not a good sign.

One file that I downloaded that did not get detected was the 'lbr.bin' file.

This contains a Trojan: ZBOT.BTS which contains information where the Trojan can download an updated copy of itself.

This Trojan attempts to steal sensitive online banking information, such as usernames and passwords.

Full details of this particular Trojan can be found here at TrendMicro.

At present, this is not a program that I would recommend and unless there are some major improvements, I don't see this as being a major contender either, but this could change over time, so we just have to wait and see what happens when this application comes out of beta.

It is certainly a vast improvement on Microsoft's previous ventures into malware prevention.

Although the official download limit has been reached and users in many other countries cannot download this through Microsoft, there is an alternative download site at Softpedia.

Please note that this is a Beta version, so if you are not happy using beta applications do NOT download.

Currently MS Security Essentials does not disable Windows Defender, but it will in a later version of the beta and Windows Defender can be safely left enabled.

Click here to download Microsoft Security Essentials - Beta

Would you trust Microsoft to protect your PC? Leave a comment below and voice your opinion.

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