BitDefender launches SME assault

BitDefender is planning to release a security software suite for small and medium-sized businesses..

Security Suite for Business will offer a combination of anti-malware tools and an online backup service.

BitDefender said that the new suite does not signal a march on the business market, and that the company has no plans to move beyond the consumer and SMB segments any time soon.

"We do not have the resources to compete. We do not have 300 guys on our support staff," said Vitor Souza, global communications manager at BitDefender.

However, Souza said that top-tier security vendors in many ways lag behind Bit Defender and other small security firms.

"The tier-two group is ahead, because that is the only way to stay competitive," he said.

"What is really cool in the security market is the evolution of education among consumers. People are understanding what proactive security means, what zero-day effects are."

Souza pointed to technologies such as heuristics and behaviour analysis, where BitDefender has focused its attention and where he claims larger vendors that use signature-based malware detection are still catching up.

BitDefender also credited some of its success to geography. The company traces its roots back to 1980s Romania, where university students were given two options: computer science and economics.

"Technology was growing in other parts of the world, and their approach was 'we'll build our own, we don't buy from anybody.'"

As such, the company was left with a bumper crop of local talent from which to recruit. Those developers then took that same spirit into BitDefender's development of security tools.

Without the funds to build a large signature-based security suite, the company instead developed the behaviour analysis tools that BitDefender now touts as a key to stopping zero-day threats and new malware variants.

It is only recently that the company has looked elsewhere for help with its products, tapping storage firm S.O.S. to provide components for the backup feature in the new security offering.

Souza said that this decision was not taken lightly. "When you look at a lot of companies in the market, they do some technologies but they outsource some parts of it," he said.

"Everything we did was all made in-house, and that took a long time to decide. It was more the American influence to finally say 'maybe we should just partner with somebody.'"

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