Grisoft (AVG) Acquires Exploit Prevention Labs

December 5, 2007:

There is big news for AVG anti-virus users. Grisoft, the makers of AVG, have just announced the acquisition of Exploit Prevention Labs, the makers of LinkScanner Pro. The deal is expected to be finalized by December 31st 2007. According to the announcement, the code for LinkScanner Pro is going to be included in all versions of AVG anti-virus.

For those who are not familiar with LinkScanner Pro, it is a security program for PCs that monitors the codes on websites you visit and looks for and removes dangerous exploit codes, as the site is downloading to your browser. It is exceptionally good at stopping iframe and redirection exploits that lead to so many infections. According to what I read, LinkScanner Pro was able to remove these dangerous exploit codes from the pages you wanted to view, delivering only the safe content. This type of exploit has recently been used against MySpace users and some major sports information web sites, not to mention the thousands of personal and business web sites that have have redirection codes injected into their home pages.

The news that this functionality is about to be rolled into AVG is fabulous. I don't know the time table for the inclusion of LinkScanner into AVG, but the news release mentions that the "Lite" version will be added to AVG Free, while the stronger version will go into the paid version of AVG Pro, and the AVG anti spyware program (formerly Ewido).

Short-term product integration plans include adding LinkScanner technology to AVG Anti-Virus Free and offering LinkScanner Online, a free on-demand URL scanning service, directly from the AVG web site. AVG also expects to maintain LinkScanner Pro, Exploit Prevention Labs’ flagship product, as a standalone offering.

Related to this announcement is the hiring of Roger Thompson, the co-founder and CTO of Exploit Prevention Labs, to become the Chief Research Officer at Grisoft, while other staff and facilities will also be absorbed into the Grisoft operation. Seems like a big win for Roger and his staff. AVG users will also be winners when this product gets included in the various AVG programs in use around the world.

In the short term, there will be no change to update deliveries or support procedures, and the websites at www.linkscanner.com and www.explabs.com will remain operational. Over time, these procedures and websites will merge with AVG’s procedures and websites;