15-Minute Reviews :: BufferZone Security Pro v2.50-42

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s review is on BufferZone Security Pro version 2.50-42 by Trustware – A virtual layer in which you can run applications in to protect yourself from malicious attacks.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“BufferZone Security Pro lets you download files from any website, run any program, and open any email attachment with complete safety. BufferZone’s virtualization technology creates an isolated zone on your PC, which separates your operating system and confidential data from unknown programs, downloads and files.

Unlike anti-virus and anti-spyware software, BufferZone requires no signature updates at all, while protecting your PC against spyware, viruses and adware -even new and yet unknown ones. Moreover, your sensitive data is immune from theft or damage.

BufferZone “automagically” protects you against vulnerabilities from all sources, such as external media, P2P, instant messaging, Web browsing, email, or network shares.”

Quick Pros

• Helpful walk-through and explanation tutorial launches on first start
• Smooth and professional interface
• Handy red border to let you know application is running in protected mode
• Application Control and Device Control adds extra layer of protection
• Built-in firewall software a nice add-on
• Does what it is intended

Quick Cons

• Firewall a nice add-on, but it is weak compared to other firewall solutions
• No way to disable the firewall functionality from the stack
• Does not red-box command prompts that are protected
• Does not support Vista

Expansion

While most home users will find an adequate level of security in anti-virus, anti-malware and personal firewall software, there are many who may become more exposed to a potential risk with their site visitations, downloads, emails and more. While anti-virus and anti-malware applications have been keeping pace with virii fairly well, there are so many new ones popping up from day to day that can end up making it past current anti-virus technologies quickly, especially if you become exposed to these environments; In many cases, such as email virii, it can happen very quickly to even unsuspecting people. This application adds an extra layer of protection to those who may be worried about data integrity and what is out there, in the wild.

This application starts out with an 8-step walkthrough explanation of features and how the application works. It does prove very helpful and does explain the most common usage. It could have explained the choice of using Application Control, but that can be left to those who may want even more protection to reading the helpfiles.

When you get past the 8-step tutorial and fire up the interface, you will come to a clean and well-organized layout. The Summary window displays information such as change count, threat count, application activity and what programs are actually running in the application. The Policy window gives you access to activating Application Control (A higher level of protection but does cause more effort long-term by flagging anything new as a potential threat and putting it into the BufferZone), Device Control (Including anything launched from various paths be ran in the BufferZone or disabled altogether) and certification trust settings. The Firewall window gives you access to create firewall policies for applications inside or outside of the BufferZone. The Configuration gives you access to marking files and folders as protected from BufferZone applications, setting up files that are strictly forbidden to run and much more. Finally, the Help window gives access to the various resources to help you with effective usage of BufferZone Security Pro.

Another handy feature is the red border; Every application which is currently inside of the BufferZone, their application window shows up with a red box. This feature can be disabled in the Configuration window; However, for most, this should be an effective visual cue that the application is being protected inside its environment.

Now, I really wanted to test out the protection functionality and went hunting the internet for a bad fileset. I found one after a few moments (Actually, my first download too) and then ran the ‘installer’ for the infected file. As quick as ever, I had pop-ups, applications launching, hard drive scanning like crazy and more. A total of 8 applications running in the background doing whatever they were bent on doing to my system. After wading through all the pop-ups diving for the BufferZone window. I didn’t even think of seeing an anti-virus application would tell me what I contracted, but I do know it was a more serious one that I’d seen previously in my troubleshooting days. I promptly hit ‘Empty BufferZone’ and stopped the processes, delete registry and virtual files, hit okay, and my hard drive went silent; No more threshing around. I let it sit for a bit, and no unknown processes running anymore; No more hard drive threshing or internet access. I even rebooted to see if it managed to sneak past the BufferZone a rootkit or one of those lovely virus that won’t stop installing themselves over and over. Nothing. While the time constraints of this review prevented me from really researching what I just got (Heh. I should have checked before blasting the BufferZone since the installer was in the BufferZone) or tried other malicious packages, I would have loved to continue toying to see if I could get one that breaks BufferZone.

A few notes though that I’m not grandly thrilled about this application however. The firewall functionality, expecially the separate settings for applications inside and outside the BufferZone, is nice, but should be more powerful, in my opinion, and act more like a real personal firewall application would, offering the ability to immediately trap all outbound traffic (especially from within the BufferZone) and require permission to do so first. It would have been even more grand if there was a packet sniffer inside the BufferZone as well so that you could research what kind of maliciousness is going on. Also, I could not find a way to disable the firewall functionality; It would be just an extra layer for the outside applications, especially if you’re running a good personal firewall already.

One last thing I did notice that made me jump when I was testing with that malicious package, was that command prompt boxes do not show up red-edged. This should be something seriously looked at, because I’m sure many people like myself are going to end up in a sudden panic when they don’t see the red box on a command prompt that is clearly running something malicious on its own.

Final Verdict

All-in-all I am overly impressed with the functionality of this application. It did its job for what I tested it with, and does it rather smoothly. I didn’t notice a performance difference either, which is a good plus. I feel that this is significantly better than Returnil ( Previously Reviewed Here ) for usability and protection difference likely is negligible as long as you watch what you’re doing with BufferZone Security Pro. Just don’t specifically go looking for trouble like I did. I also do think that this is not a substitute for anti-virus/anti-malware, but should be concidered another layer of protection. For free, I would recommend grabbing this while it is free, and then contemplate the $14.95 1-year subscription deal. Even for the currently-discounted price of $29.95 (Down from its regular price of $49.95), this application is the way to go if you have an increased threat level.

Posted by BladedThoth on Friday, August 24, 2007