Frequently Asked Questions

SSM 2.x Questions

1. What is HIPS?
2. What is "Learning mode"?
3. What is "Installation mode"?
4. What is "Basic Network Firewall"?
5. What is "Rootkit" and how SSM helps with Rootkits?
6. How To Renew SSM License?

SSM 2.x Answers

1. HIPS is the abbreviation of "Host Based Intrusion Prevention System" - a kind of software which protects a computer it is installed on against malware (Trojans, Spyware, Worms, Viruses, Backdoors etc) and hackers attacks. SSM belongs to this class of software.
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2. "Learning mode" is a special mode of SSM which does not generate any alerts but silently generates allowing rules for all actions which occur while the Learning mode is turned ON. The goal of this mode is to automate required rule creation. NOTE: Learning mode shall only be turned ON when the user is 100% confident that the system is "clean" from malware.
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3. "Installation mode" is a special mode which helps to avoid false positive alerts during a legitimate software installation process. Once selected for any installation executable it will allow this executable along with all its child processes to do what they need to do without any SSM alerts. However you may turn on the "Extended logging" feature to keep track what is happening during the installation process. NOTE: Installation mode relates to a single process and all its child processes and it does not lead to any rule generation. SSM just silently allow installation processes to do what they need only blocking those actions that are explicitly blocked by the user (actions for which blocking rules exist).
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4. Basic Network Firewall (BNF) is a new SSM feature which allows users to control outbound network traffic generated by applications. For example the user can prohibit any application to connect to network or to allow it to connect to the trusted network IP addresses only. BNF works with two IP address groups - trusted and untrusted. The user configures each group through SSM network activity pop-up or Network Rules tab of the main window. An application can only be allowed/disallowed to connect to each IP address group as a whole. NOTE: BNF only controls outbound traffic thus it may be considered a helpful supplement to the built-in Windows Firewall which in its turn allows controlling of inbound traffic for applications.
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5. Rootkit is a technique/tool to hide processes, files, registry keys other system objects from the system and third-party monitoring or scanning tools. Once a Trojan program or some other malware is hidden it can freely do bad things, like personal data stealing or system corruption staying invisible for users. SSM has a new Rootkit detection feature which allows revealing hidden processes for most known Rootkit techniques. NOTE: right now SSM Rootkit detector scope is limited by hidden processes only.
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6. When your license expires you just need to send us an email request with the license ID. We will send you back a 50% discount coupon so that you can buy another license. The new license code will need to be registered with SSM to allow updates. To change the license key you will need to remove the file key.bin and restart SSM. After that you will be prompted to input your license key as earlier. Note: SSM will not stop working when your license expires. You only need to upgrade the license if you want to retain the right to upgrade the program for one more year.