Web security vendor Dasient today released an open source version of their Web Anti-Malware (WAM) server security technology. It’s called mod anti-malware lite and the basic idea is that it will identify and block/redirect malware on a server.
Dasient announced their core technology in June, but the new part in my view, is the open source aspect. Dasient is not open sourcing their whole product, instead it’s just the ‘lite’ version – the difference between the lite and the full version is that the lite version does not actually remove the detected malware, but it does enable a server admin to put up a page that can redirect users away from the issue.
I spoke with Dasient founders Neil Daswani and Ameet Ranadive and asked them why they open sourced mod anti-malware. Their answer (to me) sounded like they were using open source as a ‘trial-mode’ channel of distribution as opposed to a method of development. But they are open to community participation. Here is what they said.
“This is our first step into the open source world,” Daswani told InternetNews.com.”We’re doing it mostly so web hosting providers and other sites can try it out. If people have interest in helping us build it out we’re more then happy to work with them.”
The other key question that I had for Dasient was how their technology is different than say the mod_security Web Application Firewall (WAF), that is also open source.
