Panda Security is a Spanish
cybersecurity software company that specializes in creating products for
IT security. Panda Security started with
antivirus software, and the company now also provides and develops cybersecurity software. This includes security products and services for both businesses and home users, as well as protection tools for systems, networks, emails, and other private information. Panda Security employs around 450 people.
Overview
In 2005, Panda Security was the fourth largest antivirus vendor worldwide, with 3.2% of the marketplace. In November 2015 OPSWAT measured Panda Security's market share to be 3.6%. The company, whose shares were previously 100% held by
Mikel Urizarbarrena
Mikel Urizarbarrena (born in Zaldibar, Basque Country, Spain) is the founder and former CEO of Antivirus Software maker Panda Software.
He founded the company in 1990, along with his wife (current vice chairman of the company) and two other fri ...
, announced on 24 April 2007, the sale of 75% of its shares to Southern European investment group Investindustrial and private equity firm Gala Capital. On 30 July 2007 the company changed its name from Panda Software to Panda Security and Urizarbarrena was replaced by Jorge Dinares. Almost one year later, on 3 June 2008, amidst flagging sales, the board of directors voted to replace Dinares with Juan Santana, the CEO. Santana resigned in September 2011 and was replaced by José Sancho as acting CEO.
Panda Security is rated in Jan 2018 by
Gartner analysts as an Endpoint Protection Visionary. Technological milestones include its launch of security systems, such as the SaaS concept (Security as a Service) or antivirus solutions that provide protection from the cloud (
cloud computing) and are based on what Panda calls Collective Intelligence, a security model Panda introduced on the market in 2007. According to its CEO, the main benefit this security model provides is that it allows automatic scanning of threats instead of the manual scans carried out by other companies.
The firm has subsidiaries in the US, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, UK, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Japan. Additionally, it has franchises in another 44 countries. The US subsidiary moved its headquarters to
Orlando, Florida in 2009.
In late 2009, Panda Security created a partnership with
Web of Trust to help fight against the war of viruses.
Panda was previously embroiled in a lawsuit with one of its channel partners, External Technologies, Inc. In 2013, Panda prevailed in its lawsuit against External Technologies, recovering a judgment in excess of $100,000 and prevailing on all claims asserted by External against Panda. On 3 August 2010, a new office location in
Menlo Park, California was publicly announced by Panda's CEO via his
Twitter account.
In 2012, the firm was the tenth largest antivirus vendor worldwide, with 2.0% of the marketplace.
In March 2020, Seattle-based network security firm
WatchGuard
WatchGuard, formally known as WatchGuard Technologies, Inc is a Seattle, Washington-based network security vendor. Its products are designed to protect computer networks from outside threats such as malware and ransomware.
The company was foun ...
announced that they entered into an agreement to acquire Panda Security.
Products
TruPrevent, which was introduced in 2003, is the firm's technologies for proactive protection, as opposed to traditional antivirus products, which provide reactive protection. It offers generic protection against many of the techniques used by new malware, with policies and rules that are developed based on the new vulnerabilities that appear daily. Collective Intelligence" is the firm's protection system to automatically detect, scan and classify malware in real time, introduced in 2007
This technology is implemented in its 2009 and 2010 antivirus products for home users and in Panda Cloud Antivirus, which the company has classified as the first antivirus in history that provides protection from the cloud
Ratings
In 2015, Panda Security obtained the best rate protection in the Real World Protection Test by
AV-Comparatives. In 2018, Panda antivirus received their Gold award by
V-Comparatives for the Whole Product Dynamic "Real-World" Protection Test.
Panda Security was named Company of the Year 2016 by leading Spanish newspaper el Suplemento for innovative work, growth outreach and history. Panda Adaptive Defense is the first Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) security solution to achieve the
EAL2+ security certification under the
Common Criteria
The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (referred to as Common Criteria or CC) is an international standard (ISO/IEC 15408) for computer security certification. It is currently in version 3.1 revision 5.
Common Criteria ...
standard, published in the BOE (Official State Bulletin) for May 2018. It was listed as a "Qualified IT Security Product" by the Spanish
National Cryptologic Center
The National Cryptologic Center (CCN) is a Spanish intelligence agency within the National Intelligence Center responsible for cryptanalyzing and deciphering by manual procedures, electronic media and cryptophony, as well as to carry out tech ...
in May 2018.
In 2016 it was named best Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Solution by Computing Magazines Security Excellence Awards. In 2018 it was recognised as the PC Pro A-List Security product for the second year running, and received an IT Pro Editor's Choice Award calling it "smarter than your average protection solution"
See also
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Antivirus software
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Comparison of antivirus software
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Comparison of computer viruses
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Internet security
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Panda Cloud Antivirus
Panda Cloud Antivirus is an antivirus software developed by Panda Security, a free and a paid version are available. It is cloud-based in the sense that files are scanned on a remote server without using processing power of the user's machine. Th ...
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Computer security software companies
Software companies of Spain
Basque companies
Antivirus software
Windows security software
Spanish brands
Spanish companies established in 1990