I read an article this kinda disturbed me. They asked the question; Warning: Is antivirus software worth having anymore? But this debate didn’t start yesterday. In fact, the debate is several years old.
They invented the first antivirus software in 1987. Also, the same development team came up with a virus authorizing kit. Ah, the irony. While the antivirus technology gets better over the years, so does the hackers’. There’s another complaint: antivirus software’s basic approach remains the same. This remains true after nearly 30 years. First, it studies data. Then, it catches a malicious file. Afterwards, that antivirus puts down the file. Then, the antivirus puts the data on a ‘blacklist’. This prevents future attacks.
For many years, this worked. But in the last several years, some things happened. The first was stronger malware. Such viruses can take over a system before the antivirus can even catch it. Furthermore, the malware authors got smarter. They even use fake antivirus programs to counteract the real thing. That’s how they evade these programs. Much of this malware is in kit form. When it comes in gangs, that makes it more dangerous. Then there is ransomware. That’s when they hold a computer hostage until the ransomware author gets what they want.
Yes, these are problems. But this is no reason to just say the antivirus is dead. This is no excuse not to get antivirus protection, either. It’s better to have some protection than none at all. Despite the grim report, antivirus can and often does works. It saved more systems than I can count. Just ask some of our technicians and our customers. So get antivirus protection! As far as the problems are concerned, what we need to do is build better antivirus software. The bad guys have techies working hard on their side. We need to work even harder. What can we do to make antivirus protection even stronger?