ClamAV 0.97.2 released

The ClamAV development team has released version 0.97.2 of its open source virus scanner toolkit. The latest update to the free, cross-platform, anti-virus application addresses problems in the bytecode engine, while also fixing bugs related to the hash matcher, encrypted PDF detection and Safebrowsing detection on certain URLs.

The ClamAV project has also announced the launch of a "Third Party web interface" service. Still in beta, the new service is designed to allow individuals and organisations to publish ClamAV Virus Databases (CVDs) through the project's mirror network. According to Joel Esler, Open Source Manager at Sourcefire, which acquired ClamAV in 2007, the custom signatures will be tested for false positives and verified against the latest two major versions of ClamAV before publishing them.

Signatures will be digitally signed and packaged into a .cvd compressed file, with a custom prefix being added to the detection names to identify the organisation which published them. A list of unofficial signatures and databases distributed by the service will be available on the Third Party CVDs web page.

Further information about the update, including details about the Third Party web interface, can be found in the official release announcement and in the change log. ClamAV 0.97.2 is available to download for various Linux and Unix distributions from the project's web site.

At the time of writing, the ClamWin developers have yet to release version 0.97.2 of their anti-virus program for Windows based on the ClamAV scanning engine. Hosted on SourceForge, ClamAV source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

(crve)