CA Anti-Spyware - History

History

PestPatrol, Inc. was a Carlisle, PA based software company, which developed PestPatrol and released its first version in 2000.

PestPatrol was an anti-malware product, designed to protect a computer system against threats such as adware, spyware and viruses. It performed automated scans of a system's hard disks, Windows registry and other crucial system areas, and enabled manual scans for specific threats, selected from a very long list of known malicious software. Among its unique features were CookiePatrol, which purges spyware cookies, and KeyPatrol, which detects keyloggers. Unlike most anti-spyware programs designed for home use on a single desktop, PestPatrol also provided a solution for the network environments found in enterprises. Among the features that made it appealing for enterprise security administrators was the ability to manage networked desktops remotely.

Early versions of the product were criticized for the poor user interface, described alternatively as something that "looks like an application that was ported from OS/2, with unclear buttons" or a "clunky, text-based UI", but the reviewers praised its malware detection and removal capabilities, stating "PestPatrol is the most effective anti-spyware system - short of a switch to Linux - that we've ever used".

It was described by InfoWorld as "one the most established brands in anti-spyware", and in 2002, it was selected as "Security product of year" by Network World, which cited its ability to detect and remove more than 60,000 types of malware, and its defenses against Remote Administration Tools (RATs).

Billing itself as the "Authority in Spyware Protection," it licensed its signature files for use in Yahoo! Companion and others. In 2003, along with other anti-spyware and anti-malware companies such as Webroot, Lavasoft and Aluria, it formed an industry consortium to fight malware called the Consortium of Antispyware Technology (COAST).

Computer Associates (now CA Technologies) bought PestPatrol in 2004 and made it a part of its eTrust computer security line, which includes a virus scanner and a firewall. Using the newly acquired technology, CA created a bundle named CA Integrated Threat Management (ITM), which consisted of an anti-virus solution and the PestPatrol anti-spyware.

Renamed CA Anti-Spyware in 2007, the program can be bought separately, or as part of CA Internet Security.

In 2007, the CA Anti-Spyware team was instrumental in exposing the fact that Facebook was collecting personal information about their users, without their knowledge, even when those users opted out of Facebook's ill-fated Beacon program, and even when those users were not logged in to Facebook.