Symantic: AV "dead" and "doomed to failure,"

wes allen

Antivirus pioneer Symantec declares AV

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Comments

Adam B

Yeah the only anti-virus now adays that is decent is malwarebytes. But even then, they cant keep up with ever evolving viruses. Viruses in general that are encrypted with very complex keys just seem to go undetected by antiviruses. Definitely an area that needs some help and innovation in the tech world, in my opinion.

YFZblu

Adam B wrote: »

Yeah the only anti-virus now adays that is decent is malwarebytes.

I definitely wouldn't tout Malwarebytes as the only decent solution out there - Once you get towards the top of the heap in terms of detection rates, it becomes more of a crapshoot. The bad stuff fails, the good just fails a little less.

Pure antivirus based on heuristics and signatures was 'dead' long ago - it should be treated as one layer of defense that can and will fail.

GarudaMin

You have to look at it from defense-in-depth viewpoint. We know AV can't catch every malware out there and that's why there are other controls in place, at least in businesses. You have your IDS/IPS, Firewall, protection from APTs (such as FireEye, WildFire, etc...), system hardening, network monitoring, patch management, access control, etc. Even if AV is dead, it will still be used as the last line of defense in terms of malware protection. I don't see it going anywhere for the near future. For typical home users, AV will still be a big part of it. There are different way to counter malware and one of the product I have heard is Cyvera. It was acquired by Palo Alto and since I have not seen it (there's no documentation), I don't know how exactly they accomplish what they state. But that would be a nice replacement for AV. But once again, even if AV is dead or has been dead for some time now, it's not going anywhere yet in the near future.

wes allen

A great follow up by Krebs on Security:

Antivirus is Dead: Long Live Antivirus! — Krebs on Security