DriveSentry is an AntiVirus program, developed by DriveSentry Inc, to protect Microsoft Windows users from malware. It is available free for personal (non commercial) use.
DriveSentry Inc, founded in 2005, is a computer security company. Headquartered in Mountain View, California the company also has major operations performed out of Nottingham, England. Originally centred around drive firewall technologies, DriveSentry Inc developed and patented the worlds first firewall for disk drives. Since 2005 DriveSentry Inc has expanded into the competitive field of AntiVirus solutions.
DriveSentry provides a realtime and on demand virus scanner, and uses a number of methods to determine if an application contains a virus before allowing it to run:

1. Whitelisting: Programs are first checked against a list of known trusted and validated applications and files. These "whitelisted" files are allowed to run without restriction.
2. Blacklisting: Only if programs are not present on the whitelist are they then checked against an updated database list of virus signatures; those files whose MD5 signature is on the list are automatically moved to quarantine area if they attempt to gain access to system or data. This is technique as used by practically all antivirus products as the first line of defence.
3. Heuristics If the programme is not on either list its behaviour is compared to that of previous encountered malware.
4. Community Statistics: DriveSentry also collects and stores user statistics based on access decisions made by the user, which is shared amongst all other users.

DriveSentry partners with Offensive Computing and Frame4 Security Services to collect and analyse malware samples for the database list, partnering in this way ensures that the database is fed by multiple sources and therefore offers redundancy.

An issue of concern for antivirus users is automated renewal fees. Although DriveSentry is free to use, those who wish to upgrade and use it's advanced features are required to make a single payment which is for the lifetime of the system.
Articles in computing publications discussing new malware protection technologies, such as whitelisting, claim that traditional antivirus technologies are having an increasingly hard time keeping up with the latest virus, trojans and other malicious threats. The popularity of the Internet and the ease at which data can now spread, allows threats to propagate faster, requiring traditional antivirus products to play "catch-up" with new zero day threats. Using whitelisting and community feedback, DriveSentry may offer greater security

PC World also preload DriveSentry onto their own brand PCs..

DriveSentry was awarded Checkmark certification in January 2008,

Editors Choice PCPlus December 2008