According to Sunbelt, Sandbox 3.0 uses behavior analysis technology to identify malicious threats such as Adobe PDF exploits, fake media players and other socially engineered attacks against enterprise or government networks.

Sunbelt says that the advanced offering is the direct result of research from Sunbelt Labs, its malware research and analysis division.

In use, Sandbox 3.0 is billed as allowing security analysts and incident response teams to analyze the behavior of suspected files by executing code inside a controlled and monitored environment. While executing the code, the software records all malicious activity, including system changes, network traffic and memory dumps.

Central to the software is its Digital Behavior Traits (DBT) technology, which Sunbelt claims will intelligently interpret the behavior of any file, document or website to automatically determine whether it is malicious.

This feature, the Sunbelt says, is critical in the effort to quickly discover new and emerging malware that has not yet been uncovered by traditional antivirus tools.

"Automated threat analysis is essential to organizations that are targeted by malware writers with brand new viruses that have not yet been categorized or cataloged by traditional antivirus solutions", said Chad Loeven, vice president of Sunbelt Labs.

Sandbox, he explained, gives users the ability to safely analyze virtually any Windows application or file, including infected documents, malicious URLs, custom applications and scripts in Flash ads.

It also gives researchers the ability to compare multiple data sources for differences and similarities, and to send malware samples to multiple sandbox configurations and centrally manage the process.

Unlike other malware analysis tools on the market today, Sunbelt says that Sandbox provides true automation to analyze in bulk and save crucial time.

By simulating the way in which a user would interact with a rogue application, Sandbox automates what is otherwise a manual process.