Romanian software firm Softwin offers its BitDefender line of antivirus products for several IM applications. While the company's software does not encrypt conversations, it can protect PCs and enterprises from receiving files that are charged with disrupting or destroying data or networks.

Files transmitted via IM aren't scanned by regular antivirus products -- IM-based transfers are like peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions that occur directly between computers. Softwin's products, though, close this security loophole by intercepting each file, then filtering and scanning them for viruses and worms before completing the transfer.

Softwin supplies protection for MSN Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, mIRC and Microsoft's NetMeeting. Users need to download separate programs for each network from which they want protection. All of the programs monitor all file transfers between users.

product submission by IMPlanet Staff

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