SubRosaSoft in booth 218 in the South Hall showed its data protection programs, including FileSalvage and FileDefense.

FileSalvage is a data recovery program that assists in the recovery of data lost due to varying situations, including media corruption and accidental deletion. While many may think that such software has become antiquated with the push that Apple has made with Time Machine, it should be noted that FileSalvage also works on flash drives and other removable media as well as hard drives and disk images, and can work with almost any format (over 100 are currently supported). FileSalvage website

FileDefense is a program that promises to protect users from malicious programs. FileDefense works by monitoring whenever programs try to write to the disk. Users can, of course, white-list programs, and certain programs are automatically white-listed so as to not inundate the user with notifications. However, the potential for the application did become somewhat apparent when SubRosaSoft demoed a proof-of-concept Trojan that when launched modified iTunes by writing junk data into iTunes.app. SubRosaSoft says the trojan did not require administrative permissions, and indeed no pop-up was delivered to ask for administrative rights. However, what did pop-up was FileDefense telling me about the pending malicious action and asking me if I wanted to allow it. FileDefense website

SubRosaSoft also was showcasing two of its products that it sells to law enforcement: MacForensicsLab and MacLockPick. While clearly these are very niché applications, I did ask how the Mac forensics market was doing. SubRosaSoft representative Ben Brausen said that the market has grown over the past two years as the industry has found problems needing solutions. Additionally, SubRosaSoft has provided tri-platform solutions (PC/Mac/Linux) at lower prices than the competition.