Nextcloud incorporates Kaspersky antivirus security

August 31, 2020 TH Author

These days we almost all use personal Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds at work, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. But, if privacy and security are at the top of your mind, these public clouds are, well, public. That’s where the open-source, private IaaS cloud software Nextcloud enters. You control your data. Now with Kaspersky Scan Engine added on, you make sure your files are free of malware before they’re loaded into the cloud.

Like any of the personal IaaS clouds, with clients on mobile and desktop operating systems and files saved to your server, users can unknowingly upload and share infected files. The integrated antivirus Scan Engine intercepts and blocks such potentially dangerous files as they’re uploaded on the server-side. This makes sure malware isn’t spread to other users.

The Kaspersky Scan Engine uses heuristic analysis and machine learning-based technologies to protect against a wide array of malware. It protects against Trojans, spyware, and adware. It also filters out malicious, phishing, and adware URLs.

Frank Karlitschek, Nextcloud’s CEO, explained Nextcloud “strives to provide the most secure online collaboration platform on the market. By integrating Kaspersky’s powerful protection capabilities, enterprises can rest assured malicious content can not easily spread through their document exchange technology.”

This feature is often requested by security managers, but curiously you rarely find it. For example, of all the major personal cloud storage services only OneDrive, to my knowledge, includes antivirus detection as a default service.

In NextCloud, customers can install the antivirus application from the program’s app store. The free version comes with the open-source ClamAV virus scanning engine. Large business customers, though, have been asking for a bigger and better security engine. So, in partnership with Kaspersky, you can now buy an on-premises Kaspersky Scan Engine and a special version of the Nextcloud antivirus app, which works hand in glove with the Scan Engine.

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“The integration of Kaspersky anti-malware technology into Nextcloud,” said Alexander Karpitsky, Kaspersky’s head of Technology Alliances, “provides its customers with the certainty that files accessed through or downloaded from their content collaboration platform will be secure. It is extremely difficult for businesses to fight millions of web threats on their own — that’s why technology partners are needed. Together we can make our online world safer.”

For support, and the required Kaspersky Scan Engine component, customers must contact Nextcloud. You can also try the Kaspersky Scan Engine with a free trial license.