Grisoft offers free rootkit detector

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 11 April 2007 14:21

Your IT - Home IT

The company behind the AVG antivirus program is offering another freebie - this time it's a rootkit detector and remover for Windows.

Rootkits are specifically designed to conceal themselves from normal software, so once they have found their way into a system they may be invisible to conventional anti-malware applications. Keyloggers and other nasties may hide behind rootkits.

"Rootkits are computer code that attempt to hide their actions and processes, making the job of detecting the code and the harmful processes very difficult," said Larry Bridwell, global security strategist at AVG. "AVG Anti-Rootkit is developed to detect and destroy rootkits effectively, without bothering users with false alarms."

According to Grisoft officials, AVG Anti-Rootkit went through a six-month open beta test.

The free version of AVG Anti-Rootkit is provided for non-commercial home use only. It includes a 30-day trial of the commercial version and may be downloaded from AVG's web site.