The second quarter of 2016 posed some major changes for PC Pitstop. Find out more now…
The FBI reported that ransoms paid to ransomware exceeded $200M for the first quarter of 2016 up from $25M for all of 2015. That is a stunning growth, and it emphasizes how little security we have in our technology infrastructure. It should come as no surprise since Symantec announced in Q2 2014 that Antivirus is Dead. The following month, Gartner reinforced the point, by stating that we should focus on Detect and Respond and less on endpoint security.
Antivirus is NOT dead. The underlying architecture of antivirus called the black list is quickly becoming obsolete. Endpoint security is critical to our nation’s security footprint. I am so proud to say that we have a white list solution that 1) plugs the enormous security hole 2) installs easily 3) is affordable and 4) is made in the United States.
We launched Tech Sentry Security in March of this year and given the urgency of the situation, sales were disappointing. One of the reasons is that from a branding perspective, we were starting on square one. We were not leveraging the success and name recognition of PC Matic. We are end of lifing the brand Tech Sentry and our business product line will be called PC Matic Pro. Tech Sentry was certainly a misstep and I am happy that we figured it out in only 3 months.
My personal focus the last three months has been on testing. Back in the 90s, the PC publications such as PC World and PC Magazine, had large testing laptops where they would perform independent unbiased testing on notebooks, desktops, and security software. Fast forward 20 years, the PC publications are on life support and this important market mechanism has been lost.
When I analyze how the market chooses security software, it is almost entirely a subjective process. That needs to change. There are of course, security testing agencies, such as Virus Bulletin, but these results do not play a large role in the purchasing process. In an age of escalating ransomware attacks, the market severely needs an unbiased comprehensive report of which products protect against ransomware the best and more importantly the worst. It is my belief that this report will greatly accelerate the adoption of application white listing. The report is scheduled for publication in October 2016.
Mike Sexton has signed on as our SVP of Sales and Marketing. Prior to joining PC Pitstop, Mike worked at Targus, Ingram Micro and Gateway Computers. In one of my many jobs at Gateway, I had international sales and Mike was part of that group. Gateway was a juggernaut and it was such an incredible experience to be part of the team that helped build and navigate the rocket ship. It is common bond that all people that once worked at Gateway share. Hopefully somehow someway, we can capture some of that Gateway magic as we try to crash the security software party.
The best for last. In the last quarter, we released Super Shield 2.0 of our real time protection. Significant improvements have been made to our algorithms, and we believe we have it perfected. The potential of white listing is not to have the best security, it is to have perfect security. That is that it blocks all things bad period, with a low and acceptable level of false positives. We think we have it figured out. In the next round of tests from Virus Bulletin and AV-Comparatives, we are expecting not just to win, but to be perfect.
Secondly, Super Shield 2.0 includes a new remediation engine. Prior to 2.0, we licensed the Vipre engine for blacklisting and remediation. We have replaced Vipre with an internally developed proprietary remediation engine made entirely in the USA. This helps our profit and loss since we no longer have licensing fees, but more importantly, we are free from the vagaries of a third party.
For all of our existing customers, you have all been upgraded to the 2.0 engine free of charge. And for our prospective investors, watch out, the party’s just getting started.
To read the full PC Pitstop Second Quarter Report, you can do so here: PCPitstop-Quarterly_Report_Q2_2016
