NPAV – Net Protector AntiVirus truth exposed
Since the last 3-4 days we have come across a lot of cases of reported infection of W32.Xpaj virus and surprisingly, found Net Protector Antivrus (NPAV) installed on the computers of all those cases. We were surprised to find the connection and were attempting to find the connection between this malware and the dubious NPAV software.
Today I came across a news article in a local (regional language) newspaper “Lokmat” which had the title of “AntiVirusach banla virus chi shikar”. This literally means – “AntiVirus gets infected by Virus”. This piece of news talks about how all the customers of NPAV are facing the problem of a new virus infection which the antivirus is not able to detect or remove properly for the last four days. (Link to full news article in Lokmat)
For all those who may not be aware, NPAV is a dubious product. Being a competitor, we had been observing this product since its origin and had noted a lot of abnormalities in the product. In its early days we had found that NPAV used McAfee command line (DOS based) scan engine for detection of viruses. When we made contact with McAfee they denied any business relations with the NetProtector group. In spite of this, the team behind NPAV was boldly using the free DOS based McAfee scanner inside their commercial NPAV scanner illegitimately and selling the product commercially in the market. When NPAV found that McAfee has an office in India and can legally reproach them, they switched their engine from McAfee to BitDefender, again in an illicit way. They started using the BitDefender scan engine without having any business relations with BitDefender and also started working on their own scan engine by hiring a few software engineers. Now it has been observed that they do not use any third party engine but use modules from open source ClamAV instead.
One cannot develop an antivirus product without having the necessary background and experience of years of Research & Development in virus analysis, or without adopting a virus scan engine from a third-party commercial antivirus vendor. In the case of NPAV, both these approaches are missing. They do not have a credible or experienced research team and they are using parts of open source scan engines and hence cannot guarantee timely updates for any new malware outbreak.
Customers using NPAV are thus unknowingly becoming a part of the fraudulent practice of using open source without proper GNU GPL license in place (in spite of paying for the antiVirus service) and at the same time remain under the false belief of being protected from viruses.
All this has been exposed with the recent outbreak of W32.Xpaj which is a very sophisticated polymorphic virus that needs experts help to detect and clean it from the system, something which the NPAV team clearly lacks because of obvious reasons.
Our recommendation is to use genuine Windows products and genuine and certified antivirus software. After all, it’s your data and business that is at stake.
21 Comments
npav is a waste antivirus i have ever seen because i had lost all my data using this worst product , all my data got connected by using this ugly one
I am using NPAV since from last 4 years but did not face any problem, though i am not expert in this field but want say that there is no any antivirus 100% full proof. This artical seems to be written with some intention of advertising purpose. I do download various executable files and run them but never came across threatening situation.
i agree with u mukund..
yah mukund does seems a foolish way to market their product.Indeed you are right though I don’t us NP/AV but Quickheal and I can Still say that every AV has its own Good as well as Bad points
Yes, i agree with mukund…..NPAV is good and secures well, but needs more RAM during scanning
I agree with Mukund and I’m also using NPAV since last 1 year and had never come across such a problem.It’s a best antivirus alternating to Quick Heal…
I have been using NPAV since past three months and had to get my device formatted thrice. I don’t know if it was due to some virus it was unable to detect or what but it also slows my computer down.
My computer also hangs and programs become unresponsive when i connect to internet. Since my work requires me spending lot of time online, NPAV has become a headache.
I AM A USER OF NET PROTECTOR FORM 2 YERA THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH THIS ANTIVIRUS AND SUPPORT IS ALSO VERY GOOD FROM THE COMPANY. INSTEAD OF THIS I HAVE USED QUICK HEAL PRO THAT WAS GOT INFECTED FROM VIRUSES NAMES .LNK AND A HEAVY VIRUS I DON’T REMEMBER THE NAME BUT BECAUSE OF VIRUS MY LAPPY WAS SHOWING A DATE OF 80 YEARS AGO AND ANTIVIRUS EXPIRED AND QUICK HEAL HAS A POOR SUPPORT FOR CONSUMER….SO QUICK HEAL IS WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY…
R. J. U CAN CONTACT NET PROTECTOR SUPPORT FOR HELP THEY WILL DEFINITELY SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM…
I am tottaly agree with you siddhant bhai..
I hacked their website and reported to them but they still not fixed vulnerabilities in their websites and also their are some scripts in site which are making suspicious to visit their portal hope they makes cleaner site.
if they cant protect themselves then how they can protect others.
Also what W32.Xpaj has to do with all the rest points in this post?
I couldn’t understand
I was user of NPAV from last 2 years and now wanted to switch to QH,after uninstalling NPAV , I could not install QH from CD.My engineer said that NPAV has left some files ( which I am unable to delete(.bzz files)) causing this crash in installation.
Please tell me, any one faced this issue?
restart in safe mode and delete net protector folder.
rajiv since i am using from 6 months.even i tried to download virus but antivirus protecting every malicious code.i think free user might be usually face that type problem
I am using NPAV currently and i can say that this is the worst antivirus programme ever!!!. i agree with QH it actually gets infected by virus. whenever i open it and go scan menu there are always 2 files and 1 folder in exclude list automatically.
Having the same issue!
I am using NPAV since from last 2 years but did not face any problem, there is no any antivirus Give 100% full protection. This artical seems to be written with some intention of advertising purpose. I do download various executable files and run them but never came across threatening situation.
no anti virus is perfect. I know many people having paid QH software but facing many problems. It is just a case of a foreign country co. which is not able to digest a Indian co. which might be doing a good job for less money. Foreign co. do not like Indian co. which prospers and kills their monopoly.
Worst of all.
Hi Manish,
Can you please share the exact nature of your concern? That will allow us to give you a solution accordingly.
Best regards.