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.

StreamArmor is the standalone, portable application which does not require any installation. It can be copied to any place in the system and executed directly.

What is Alternate Data Stream (ADS) ?

Alternate Data Stream (ADS) is the lesser known feature of Windows NTFS file system which provides the ability to put data into existing files and folders without affecting their functionality and size. Any such stream associated with file/folder is not visible when viewed through conventional utilities such as Windows Explorer or DIR command or any other file browser tools. It is used legitimately by Windows and other applications to store additional information (for example summary information) for the file. Even 'Internet Explorer' adds the stream named 'Zone.Identifier' to every file downloaded from the internet.

Due to this hidden nature of ADS, hackers have been exploiting this method to secretly store their Rootkit components on the compromised system without being detected. For example, the infamous Rootkit named 'Mailbot.AZ' aka 'Backdoor.Rustock.A' used to hide its driver file into system32 folder (C:\Windows\system32) as a stream '18467'.

In short, ADS provides easy way to store the malicious content covertly as well as execute it directly without making even a bit of noise. Only sophisticated tools such as StreamArmor has the ability to discover and destroy these hidden malicious streams.