Agnitum

Agnitum Ltd.

Type	Privately held
Industry	Software
Founded	St. Petersburg, Russia (February 1, 1999 (1999-02-01))
Headquarters	St. Petersburg
Products	personal firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam
Number of employees	50 (2008) ^[1]
Parent	Yandex
Website	www.agnitum.com

Agnitum Ltd was founded in 1999 in St. Petersburg, Russia as software company. In 2000 Agnitum hired 2 developers and increased the number of staff people to 20 until 2002. Agnitum was originally focused on anti-trojan and PC connections monitoring solutions targeted on Windows PCs users. The company is now known mostly as a personal firewall and Internet security products provider. Outpost Firewall Pro, the flagship product of the company, was released in 2002 together with its freeware solution (updated once in 2009). Agnitum's products are mostly consumer-oriented, taking into account licensing Agnitum's products technologies to several national security software publishers.

On January 14, 2016, Agnitum confirmed on its official blog that the company was acquired by Yandex in December 2015.^[2]

History

Agnitum was established as software producer in 1999 in St. Petersburg, Russia by two students of Baltic State Technical University.

Distributing own software online as shareware, Agnitum has sold their niche software. After entering in 2002 to the PC's firewalls market Agnitum software has become rather popular.

In 2002 Agnitum began to formally implement an international distribution strategy, putting in place agreements with partners for the major European markets as well as Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland. Between 2003 and 2006 Agnitum strengthened its European, American and Far East market positions.

The personal firewall engine of the company became the basis of company's products and thus it was integrated into several other firms' security solutions. Partnering with IT security vendors to provide them personal firewall and anti-spyware technologies, in 2003-2006 Agnitum has announced contracts with anti-virus solutions vendors (as whole re-branded software or part of the vendor's suite): Sophos (UK, USA), Lavasoft (Sweden), Novell (USA), VirusBuster (Hungary) and others.

In 2006 Agnitum had criticized Microsoft OneCare Firewall - Agnitum claimed it leaks when faced with all but the simplest attacks by programs that test firewalls for leaks. Agnitum's Chief Software Acrhitect posted its less-than-glowing assessment of Microsoft's Windows Firewall, part of the company's entry into the security software business.

in 2006 Agnitum has entered in strategic alliance with VirusBuster,^[3] experienced anti-virus vendor from Hungary. Agnitum have aimed to enter the market of Internet Security suite solutions to compete with anti-virus vendors (Kaspersky, ZoneLabs, etc.) who already had integrated personal firewalls into their personal security solutions (mostly they were personal anti-viruses with additional spyware, adware, spam and web content filtering engines).

In 2007-2008 Agnitum finally entered the market of anti-virus solutions. Its anti-virus products began participating of international and domestic test labs tests as Virus Bulletin's VB100 and Anti-Malware.ru's anti-virus tests, and Outpost Firewall Pro was tested by the leaktests and killtests at independent research portals.

In 2009 and 2010 Agnitum released 2 freeware editions for its Outpost software - Outpost Firewall Pro (Free edition) and Outpost Security Suite Free to continue competition with well-known ZoneAlarm, Comodo and other free PC firewall vendors.

Product History

Agnitum's first software products were anti-trojan tool Tauscan ^[4] and PC connections monitoring tool Jammer.

Anti-trojan software, Tauscan, has occasionally achieved attention of the media and received some awards.^[5] Jammer was focused on detecting and blocking attacks from hackers; so it was a prototype for the Outpost Personal Firewall, launched simultaneously in “Free” and “Pro” versions in March 2002.

In March 2007 Agnitum released free anti-spam plug-in for filtering Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express mail (supports The Bat! since 2008).

In May 2007 Agnitum released combined Internet Security suite solution — Outpost Security Suite Pro (OSSP). It was a proactive solution on the basis of Outpost Firewall, Agnitum Anti-Spam and licensed Anti-Virus combined with Agnitum's Anti-Spyware.

In October 2007 Agnitum released Microsoft Vista-compatible Outpost "2008" products. Outpost Firewall Pro began to pass leak-tests and kill-tests in Matousec Transparent Security Firewall Challenge project, independent project for Proactive Security Software testing.

In 2010 Agnitum released an extension for its freeware solution - Outpost Security Suite Free to include anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-spam as free Internet Security suite.

At the moment, Agnitum's security products are available in the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Russian (by default). There are also lot of localized Outpost software versions like Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese.

Technology licences

Agnitum's firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus engines became almost the independent products. Several IT security companies were licensing Agnitum's technologies, and integrate it into their own products. The list of companies who made publicity for the licensing: - Novell (for Novell OS client security agent) - Sophos (for corporate edition's client agent) - Bullguard (for Internet Security solution) - Lavasoft (for personal firewall's client agent) - CAT/QuickHeal (Indian anti-virus solutions vendor, for Total Security solution)

References

↑
↑ Yandex acquired Agnitum technology for Yandex Browser
↑ see VirusBuster OEM partners Archived September 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ see as an example of notability
↑ see Editor's choice Award in PCMag review of Anti-trojan tools for 2002 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2009-09-13.

External links

Footnotes

Firewall software

Linux

Apps	Netfilter L7-filter NuFW ipset iptables nftables FireHOL Firestarter FirewallD Shorewall Uncomplicated Firewall MoBlock Privoxy Squid

Distros	SmoothWall IPCop IPFire LEDE OpenWrt Zeroshell Untangle

BSD

Apps	PF NPF ipfirewall IPFilter

Distros	M0n0wall SmallWall pfSense

OS X

Windows

Commercial	Check Point Integrity Kaspersky Internet Security McAfee Personal Firewall Plus Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway Norton 360 Norton Personal Firewall Norton Internet Security Outpost Firewall Pro Symantec Endpoint Protection Trend Micro Internet Security Windows Firewall Windows Live OneCare WinGate WinRoute

Freemium	Comodo Internet Security Online Armor Personal Firewall PC Tools Internet Security ZoneAlarm

Open-source	PeerBlock PeerGuardian

Appliances

Antivirus software

Companies

Major	Agnitum Avast Software AVG Avira Bitdefender Comodo Dr. Web ESET F-Secure Kaspersky Intel Security Microsoft Panda Qihoo 360 Sophos Symantec Trend Micro

Minor	AhnLab Cisco Check Point ClamWin Fortinet FRISK G Data iolo Intego Kingsoft Lavasoft Malwarebytes PSafe Quick Heal TrustPort VirusBlokAda Webroot Zemana ZoneAlarm

Products

Desktop, server	AhnLab V3 Internet Security Avast Antivirus AVG Avira Internet Security BitDefender ClamWin Clam AntiVirus Comodo Antivirus Comodo Internet Security Dr. Web ESET NOD32 F-Secure F-PROT Fortinet G Data Advanced SystemCare iolo System Shield Kaspersky Anti-Virus Kaspersky Internet Security KingSoft Mac Internet Security Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware McAfee VirusScan Microsoft Security Essentials Windows Defender Panda PSafe TOTAL 360 Safeguard Outpost Security Suite Sophos Symantec Endpoint Protection Immunet Element Anti-Virus Norton AntiVirus Norton Internet Security Spyware Doctor VirusBarrier Trend Micro Internet Security TrustPort Vba32 AntiVirus ZoneAlarm

Mobile, tablet	AhnLab Mobile Security Avast Antivirus AVG AntiVirus Avira Free Android Security Bitdefender Mobile Security CM Security Comodo Mobile Security Dr. Web Mobile Security Suite ESET Mobile Security F-Secure Mobile Security G Data MobileSecurity Lookout Mobile Security McAfee Mobile Security PSafe TOTAL Android FireAMP Mobile Trend Micro Mobile Security TrustPort Mobile Security VirusBarrier

Comparison of antivirus software

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