Microsoft's free anti-malware beta to arrive next week

From CNET News.com: Microsoft will launch a public beta of its anti-malware service, Microsoft Security Essentials, on Tuesday as it phases out its Live OneCare suite in favor of a simpler free consumer security offering.

Microsoft Security Essentials, which will run on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7, will be available in the U.S., Brazil, and Israel in English and Brazilian Portuguese. A public beta version for Simplified Chinese will be available later in the year.

The service works like traditional antivirus products in which client software monitors programs on a PC. When it finds a piece of suspicious software, the system checks against a set of malware signatures in the client program to see if the code matches the signature for known malware. If so, it blocks it from getting downloaded.

If a piece of software is acting suspicious, by attempting to make network connections or trying to modify privileged parts of the system, for instance, the service will check for a match in the database. If no signature match is found, the system will ping the server-based Dynamic Signature Service to see if any new signatures are available and, if so, it removes the malware.

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