Who is Robot Genius?
Robot Genius develops market-leading, behavior-based technology that locates, identifies and protects against various forms of malware. Its industry-leading RGcrawler data list—created from the industry’s first automated malware web crawler, is the most comprehensive ‘blacklist’ of all exact URLs containing malware on the Internet. Combined with the company’s browser plug-in enhancement, RGguard and security client, Spyberus, Robot Genius provides the most complete prevention, detection, and remediation of malware to protect against all types of malicious threats.

How was Robot Genius started?
Robot Genius was founded in June, 2005 by James N. Hormuzdiar, PhD Yale and Stephen Hsu, PhD Berkeley (professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oregon).  James and Stephen also founded SafeWeb, Inc., an SSL VPN company acquired by Symantec in 2003.

What are the Robot Genius products?
Robot Genius creates behavior-based technology that locates, identifies and protects against various forms of malware.  Its products include RGcrawler data, the most comprehensive ‘blacklist’ of all exact URLs containing malware on the Internet; RGguard, a lightweight browser plug-in enhancement that works in tandem with the RGcrawler data; and Spyberus, a behavior-based anti-malware desktop security client.

How is Robot Genius different?
Current desktop security software applications attempt to protect PCs against malware by using the same methods as traditional antivirus software, protecting users only from discovered threats. They cannot detect malware, because it morphs too frequently. Robot Genius’ multi-point solution was designed and created from unique behavior-based anti-malware technology that looks for characteristics within executables that are specific to malware. In this way, it is much more accurate at determining if a software program is malware.

How significant is the malware problem?
Today, about two-thirds of all PCs are believed to have some form of malware infection. The Geek Squad reports that 78 percent of their consumer revenue is from cleaning up such malware on their customers’ PCs. According to the Yankee Group, roughly 220,000 cumulative unique variants of malware are out there, representing a tenfold increase over 2002 numbers. At the same time, detection rates against new variants are less than 70 percent, and anti-virus labs are 30-60 days behind in trying to keep pace with the appearance of new mutations. Data from Forrester Research shows that 17 percent of businesses said their systems have suffered from spyware this year, and the firm expects that number to climb to 25 percent within the next 12 months. NetworkWorld says that almost 40 percent of enterprise IT trouble tickets are spyware-related.

How does malware get onto a computer?
Malware infections are usually a result of users voluntarily downloading and installing software (executable programs) from the Internet that contains malware.  Malware can also make its way onto a computer via file sharing. According to IDC, seventy percent of employees at businesses use free, instant-messaging applications, which, by default, give direct file-sharing access to users who are listed on each other's buddy lists.

What does malware do to a computer?
Malware can install a driver on a computer and wreak havoc – DLL injections (process hijacking), calling out over the Internet, adding keyloggers or changing computer privileges. Malware programs can also take control of a PC, using it for a zombie or bot to relay spam, store illicit data or conduct denial of service attacks.

Who can benefit from Robot Genius products and technology?
Search engines, service providers, PC manufacturers and repair services, firewall and gateway vendors, traditional security software vendors, and enterprise Information Security and help desk organizations can all benefit from Robot Genius products. Robot Genius offers the most effective process for identifying the exact location of all malware, helps prevent malware infections by proactively warning individuals of danger while browsing, and can stop malware-hijacked processes, should the malware get in, so that the system can be brought under user control.

What are Robot Genius’ key products?
Robot Genius offers three flagship products that prevent, detect and remediate malware attacks: RGcrawler, RGguard, and Spyberus.

What is RGcrawler?
RGcrawler data is the most comprehensive ‘blacklist’ of all exact URLs containing malware on the Internet with a false positive detection rate of near zero. The data list data is created from patent-pending automated processes for discovering, downloading and testing every executable on the Internet, without human intervention.

What is RGguard?
RGguard is a lightweight browser plug-in enhancement that works in tandem with the RGcrawler data to prevent malware infections. It proactively warns browsing individuals of danger. RGguard marks up search results links with color-coded safety indicators to alert users of potential threats.  It knows the exact full path URL for each instance of malware, reducing the chance of false positives.

What is Spyberus?
Robot Genius’ anti-malware desktop security client, Spyberus, has the ability to reverse any malware infection, and guarantees a greater than 99 percent success rate. While traditional antivirus programs only protect against known threats based on identified signatures, the Spyberus client protects against new or unknown zero-day threats by having the capability to block URLs that contain malware and by alerting the user to malicious activity of programs installed.  Additionally, the Spyberus client has virtually no impact on system performance or system resources.  It runs in the background while watching for potentially malicious activity, and keeps security ‘noise’ levels low by only alerting users to potential problems. Spyberus is also fully compatible with antivirus software and other security programs. It offers immediate protection out-of-the-box, with no complicated setup or difficult configuration decisions, or time-consuming signature downloads required.

What are the key benefits of the Robot Genius anti-malware solution?
Robot Genius provides:

  • A most comprehensive database of executables tested on the Internet.
  • A valuable and desired ‘blacklist’ of all URLs containing malware.
  • An exact ‘white list’ of safe executables.
  • The fastest, most powerful, fully automated method for discovering all malicious executables on the Internet.
  • Zero-day threat protection against all types of malware.
  • Remediation of all types of malware programs with a greater than 99 percent success rate.
  • Immediate protection out-of-the-box, with no complicated setup.