ROMAD is pursuing a cybersecurity revolution and dubs itself as the “next generation antivirus.” ROMAD tackles cybersecurity in a unique way compared to the traditional products on the market and uses the transparency of the blockchain to publish its malware findings, which puts the power in the hands of the public instead of large corporations. Their approach has been well received by the market, as evidenced by multiple awards they’ve received from Shark Tank in the U.S.
ROMAD differentiates itself because it “combats the families, not the strains,” pointing to “50 malware families [that] are responsible for 80% of all the strains.” ROMAD pursues the “malware DNA and instead of targeting the millions of strains, they instead wrestle with the dozens of families. Indeed, ROMAD tackles the malware family instead of the strain, which it says makes all the difference. One of the use cases for ROMAD is to uncover threates tied to cryptocurrency mining, such as Wannamine tied to the Monero digital currency in which ROMAD identified similarlities to the WannaCry virus. ROMAD describes the behaviorial sequences individually and “extracts commonalities between the families,” pointing to the EternalBlue Exploit.
The ROMAD team has spent years and millions of dollars on research and development. They’ve developed a system in which they “process billions of the system calls in real time” and create profiles based on each and every program running on a computer. From there, they compare those profiles with their own database of comprised of “malware families descriptions.”
When a virus is detected, ROMAD will “write the successfully repelled malware attack on the blockchain,” thereby providing transparency to the public. Incidentally, ROMAD antivirus doesn’t run around the clock like other antivirus software products. Instead, the company says that a monthly update is enough.
There are two main features to the ROMAD ecosystem: the ROMAD Endpoint Defense and the RoBust Defense token, RBDT.
The ROMAD Endpoint Defense has two key subsystems including a “multi-tier filtering system” and a malware genome database.” As the name suggests, the filtering system fiters the billions of system calls in OS Windows, including between 5,000 and 300,000 system calls per second. The system overlooks “good system calls” while the balance are thoroughly examined by the ROMAD detector. This is where the database comes in, which “implements the bioinformatics algorithms to search for the behavioral malware DNAs.”
While much of the ROMAD ecosystem is quite technical in nature, the company says its user interface is simple to use and does not require a cybersecurity expert to understand. Users shouldn’t be overly concerned with the project settings and will be prompted by ROMAD Endpoint Defense when malware is detected. ROMAD’s anti-virus software is distributed free of charge. It’s not unless and until a virus is detected and thwarted that the end-user pays.
The ROMAD platform is fueled by the RBDT token, which holds the license for the Endpoint Defense antivirus solution. The holder of the RBDT token can use the license to protect an endpoint, “distribute it manually to third parties” or “transfer it to the ROMAD marketplace.” Token holders are entitled to a percentage of the smart contract-fueled fee paid by end-users when an attack is detected.
Internet end-users, cryptocurrency miners, cryptocurrency investors holding assets in digital wallets across organizations, individuals and “those who value cybersecurity.”