Stream Armor

Alternate Data Stream (ADS) is a highly sophisticated but relatively unknown feature in the Windows NTFS file system that facilitates the compatibility with the Macintosh Hierarchical File System (HFS), meaning- just like the HFS, Windows also divides the data of its files into two categories- one where the actual content is stored while the other is the extension part (e.g- .txt, .DAT, .JPEG etc.) which tells the OS how to utilize the content stored in the file. However, the ADS feature has a downside too as it can potentially enable a hacker to store a file within a file, thus creating some very trivial security risks. But thankfully, the recent few years has seen a number of dedicated software coming into light by various developers in order to sort out the security issue of this feature. Stream Armor 1.5 is such software that protects you from any possible security breaches that can be achieved by exploiting the ADS feature.

Stream Armor 1.5 comes with a very attractive interface in Blue and Silver and can boast of some really sophisticated features. The controls are also fairly simple. With the high-end auto analysis feature, merged with an internet threat verification mechanism, this product is definitely a stand out amongst the other tools currently available on the market today. It is equipped with a quick and efficient multi threaded Alternate Data Streams scanner that can finish scanning your entire hard drive in no time. The `Auto Threat Analysis` feature that it includes is based on the latest heuristic technology. Also it offers a “Snapshot View” that helps you to identify the threats immediately as well as a categorized multi-colored stream-stats with each color distinguishing an individual threat level. Some of the other exciting features are: the `Online Threat Verification` tool that enables you to detect any potential malicious programs in the streams in question, an HTML report containing details of the detected thread, portability- that gives you the ability to store it in a removable media for using wherever and whenever needed and many more.

To conclude with, Stream Armor 1.5 can really play a handy role when it comes to keep you safe from adulterated alternate data streams. Hence it gets a score of four rating points out of five.

StreamArmor is the sophisticated tool for discovering hidden alternate data streams (ADS) as well as clean them completely from the system. It's advanced auto analysis coupled with online threat verification mechanism makes it the best tool available in the market for eradicating the evil streams.
It comes with fast multi threaded ADS scanner which can recursively scan over entire system and quickly uncover all hidden streams. All such discovered streams are represented using specific color patten based on threat level which makes it easy for human eye to distinguish between suspicious and normal streams.
It has built-in advanced file type detection mechanism which examines the content of file to accurately detect the file type of stream. This makes it great tool in forensic analysis in uncovering hidden documents/images/audio/video/database/archive files within the alternate data streams.
Main Features of StreamArmor
* Fast, multi threaded ADS scanner to quickly and recursively scan entire computer or drive or just a folder.
* 'Snapshot View' for quick identification
* Advanced stream file type detection
* Sophisticated 'Auto Threat Analysis' based on heuristic technology
* 'Online Threat Verification' to check for presence of Virus or Rootkit in the suspicious streams
* Representation of streams using color pattern based on threat level
* Save the selected stream file content to a disk, or USB drive or DVD for further analysis.
* Execute/Run the selected executable stream file for analyzing its malicious nature in virtual environments such as VMWare.
* Generate HTML report for discovered streams.
StreamArmor is fully Portable software which can be directly run anywhere without installing locally. It works on wide range of platforms starting from Windows XP to latest operating system Windows 7.