Is Antivirus Software On Life Support?
Nowadays, it’s difficult to imagine life without computers and internet connectivity. For quite some time, internet users have been accustomed to dealing with malware threats and viruses. What we usually do is to install an antivirus program that can protect us from any such threat. This has become the ultimate answer we know.
On the side of developers, these things are treated differently. What many developers do is monitoring and fixing specific errors through error tracking software and other advanced tools to separately stop or remove every new type of issues. Creating an antivirus software program is just one of the many solutions they work on, and this is because the usual antivirus technology we all know is not enough to protect us.
Can Antivirus Software Stop All Malware Threats?
According to Symantec, only 45% of cyber-attacks were caught by antivirus software. This shows that antivirus software faces a big problem in justifying its significance in today’s information technology.
In 2005, it was reported by Panda Software that new malware was found every 12 minutes. For ordinary internet users, this would seem quite enormous. However, this number was actually very low compared to the report made by McAfee a year after.
In the report, McAfee discovered that there were four new malware programs revealed every second. This means that malware developers are more aggressive than those who develop anti malware programs.
If 45% of such malware threats are caught, 55% of them were not stopped or prevented. This is a clear indication that your antivirus program will not guarantee 100% protection.
Why Is Antivirus Software Getting Weaker?
Actually, antivirus technology continues to get stronger day by day. However, developers of malware programs never stop developing new technology to counter the new innovations in cyber security.
Day by day, malware developers continue to test their programs against all types of antivirus protection programs. This is why there is a stream of new malware threats across the web. These are just test programs they create until they come up with the one that is difficult to detect.
Today, malware developers use “crypting” to make malicious files appear as though they are normal files. Because of this, most antivirus programs skip them and leave them undetected.
Moreover, some malware programs have a very short lifespan. They perform their functions very quickly and disappear after a few hours. For some reason, if they’re caught, they will disappear before they’re removed, and act like spies who come and go.
Is Antivirus Software Really Dead?
The current antivirus technology today is not dead, but is way behind the technology being used by malware developers, and this war still is ongoing. What ordinary users should do is to become updated with the latest antivirus solutions that can provide maximum protection.
This is easier said than done as there is still much more to be done in order to keep up with the growth of malware technology. However, let’s accept the fact that no premium antivirus program can promise full protection.
For as long as antivirus software is able to detect and stop malware, malware still exists. We can only say it’s dead when it doesn’t detect any malware at all. If that is the case, the only protection we have is to turn off our device.
Conclusion
Malware protection is not all about having an antivirus program. It entails constant monitoring and updating the way malware continues to evolve. The best protection we should have in the future is to be able to stop those people who keep creating malware programs.
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