System Security Guard warns but doesn't protect

When you’re manually hunting for malware on a PC then you might start by launching Task Manager, Process Explorer, Process Hacker or a similar tool to see exactly what’s running. But these programs generally won’t directly tell you which processes are safe, and which might be dubious: you’ll have to look at what they’re doing and try to figure this out for yourself.

If this seems a little too much like hard work, though (or you’d just like some pointers to tell you where to look first), then you might be interested in System Security Guard, a very simple tool which can check your running processes for known threats.

The program couldn’t be much more straightforward. Just launch System Security Guard, and it’ll examine your running processes and loaded modules, comparing the files with its cloud-based security database (the same technology that provides the process security ratings in System Explorer). A summary warns you of any threats or suspicious files, and you can view the scan report with a click.

As malware detection systems go, this isn’t exactly sophisticated. There’s no behaviour monitoring, no protection for your system settings, no way for System Security Guard to reveal brand new and previously undiscovered threats. All it can do is compare running processes on your system against those in its database, and flag any problems.

And even if the program does detect something, it can only warn you. There are no virus removal options here.

It’s not all bad news, though. System Security Guard’s simplicity means it’s extremely compatible with other antivirus tools: you shouldn’t see any conflicts at all.

The program can also help with your process research. We saw our trial PC had been running nvscpapisvr.exe, for instance, clicked the Details link in the scan report for more information, and saw that it was NVIDIA’s Stereo Vision Control Panel API Server.

And it’s also portable, lightweight (only 3MB disk space required), and can deliver good results, sometimes at least – we tried it on a system with 3 dangerous executables and it found them all.

We wouldn’t waste resources by running System Security Guard all the time, then – it’s not powerful enough to bother with that.

But, if you suspect a PC is infected by something nasty then the program provides a quick and easy way to look for basic problems. And even if it doesn’t identify any malware, System Security Guard will highlight “unknown” files, those so new that they’re not in its database, perhaps a good indication of where your malware research should begin.

Photo Credit:  Phase4Photography/Shutterstock