DriveSentry on hard-disk patrol

DriveSentry offers users 'a firewall for the hard drive"

DriveSentry will launch a new file-monitoring tool today, designed to protect firms from zero-day threats and to lock down machines so that malware and unauthorised applications cannot write themselves to PC drives.

DriveSentry – also the product name – monitors every application that tries to write itself to a user’s hard drive to ensure threats such as Trojans, viruses, rootkits and keyloggers are blocked, said the firm. The product can also control which file types are written to the drives, allowing administrators to prevent movies or MP3s from being saved by P2P software, for example.

“It’s a firewall for your hard drive,” said DriveSentry’s chief technology officer, John Safa. “And from the business side, you can lock down PCs and protect against zero-day threats, which some antivirus programs don’t pick up because they are not updated for the latest threats.”

DriveSentry also lets administrators block certain file types from writing to USBs, enabling greater protection of sensitive data.