How many times we get panicked when we find an unknown executable running in the background. You can surely check that unknown program using online services like VirusScan or Jotti and see if they are malicious in nature. But its tedious to manually check each and every application against these online services to verify if they are okay or may cause harm. Now you can use freeware System Security Guard to automatically scan all the running programs against such services and verify them if they are malware. System Security Guard also uses its own cloud based file database to check the files.
System Security Guard is free security program that is designed using the security features of another software – System Explorer designed by the same software company. System Security Guard is not a substitute for any anti-virus or anti-malware programs, but it acts as an auxiliary option to them. It is compatible with any traditional anti-virus programs and uses very low system resources. This small tool might help keep your system secure by identifying the malicious processes.
System Security Guard is designed by the Mister Group and can be downloaded from their website. The download is available as an installer and also as a portable application. It supports all versions of Windows starting from Windows XP, 2003, Vista and 7. Personally, I prefer using the portable applications because they do not leave any clutter behind on your hard disk and in Windows registry files. When you run System Security Guard portable, you are shown an end user license agreement – after accepting which the main interface opens.
You can click on the Start Security Check button to start the scanning. You have to give permission for System Security Guard to access the internet in your firewall software, so that it can make use of its cloud based file database. It takes only a few minutes for the scan to complete and at the end of the scan you are shown a summary of safe files, threat files, suspicious files or unknown files. You can click on the See the results of the security check link to see detailed results.
This would open the detailed results of all the scanned files in your web browser. The results are stored on the System Security Guard server and can only be seen if you have an active internet connection. You can further see the details of every file by clicking on the details next to it which would open all the technical and security details about that file.
System Security Guard also places an icon in the notification area (system tray) of Windows and keeps continously scanning for any new process. If it finds an offending process, it alerts you immediately. You can turn off or on this security guard feature by right-clicking on this icon and choosing Security Guard from the context menu. You can also choose the alert mode for a new process to be either Learning Mode or Alert Mode.
Now you no longer have to open Task Manager, copy the name of the running program and Google for it. System Security Guard does that all automatically for you. It scans all the running instances of programs against its huge file database (it boasts to have information of over 8 millions files). It is available as a portable application so you can carry it around with you in your USB stick. You can download it from http://www.systemsecurityguard.com/.