Antivirus is dead ?

 

Recently Symantec, one of the worlds largest security software houses, recently states that “antivirus is dead” and that they don’t really consider it to be a source of profit. Following Symantec’s statement a number of similar companies made the same statement in what sounds like media attention grabbing.

 

An Experiment

But, as a research firm, we decided to look at this from the point of view of an ordinary home user. Lets introduce Jayne. Jayne is an average home user, on a normal home ADSL line. Jayne hears Symantec say antivirus is dead so doesn’t bother with antivirus on his new laptop. Here is what happens:

 

Windows 7
Windows 7 installed from genuine CD with genuine key, built on Sunday 17th August. Connected to the ADSL line permanently. System fully compromised on the 19th of August.

 

Control

The system was also built identically on a second laptop but this time with Microsoft Security Essentials. This system was functioning correctly with no signs of compromise of the 19th of August.

 

Conclusion

At the end of the day, antivirus is not a perfect solution. In some cases it is not even close to perfect. As systems get more powerful and interactions become quicker, antivirus solutions will need more power. Real-time file scanning, constant updates and regular checks on the whole system only mean one thing – as long as antivirus is thorough, productivity while using a computer goes down severely.

 

This is not going to change in the foreseeable future, but the flip side of the argument is that it is needed. For a machine to operation disconnected from the internet is almost impossible now. It looks like for the moment, antivirus is here with us, for good and bad.

Author - Peter Bassill