China Tech News reports:

According to Sina.com, Baidu Security Center, a joint project between Baidu (BIDU) and Kingsoft was started on February 27 to provide free anti-virus services for Chinese users.

The newly launched BSC is said to offer security ratings for systems in a way similar to Vista scoring to remind users of conducting necessary operations to kill viruses or upgrade their computer, as well as to provide online security services to them.

The parties have not considered a profit-making pattern for the new service, but they say that they won’t charge a fee from users. In November 2006, Kingsoft cooperated with Baidu on launching shadu.baidu.com, which was one of the first third-party anti-virus platforms in China.

The site offers free online virus scanning, advice and information on Windows vulnerabilities and malware threats, and some free AV tools.

The shadu.baidu.com site has links to multiple vendors’ free online scans and to their (not free) endpoint security solutions, including for mobile platforms. Most offer a subscription model ranging from RMB10-20/month.

Malware is a huge problem in China. This is definitely a valuable service from China’s top search site. It also is a smart business move for Kingsoft. Free online anti-virus scanning is a great way to spread fear and panic of malware infections. The computer security situation in China is so bad that fear and panic would be a healthy first step. With the results of an online test, the importance of security software should be obvious.

The free online scans from different companies are useful to get a sense of their performance. There are an increasing number of reports that more malware is being missed by security vendor’s products. Encouragingly, a number of different security vendors and companies met in Spain to inaugurate AMTSO, the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. Clear, transparent assessment tools for different anti-malware products will go a long way to identify the most effective products and act as a competitive spur to technological laggards.

No Chinese companies participated.

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