Antivirus Software: Losing the Race to Malware
Business Technology | September 26, 2012
Keeping your antivirus software up to date is critical to safeguard your computer against malware and virus attacks, right? A recent article published by MIT’s Technology Review says that it might not be as vital as you think. Your computer may be more prone to attacks than you may like to think.
Antivirus Software: Unreliable?
The antivirus software that we have paid for and long relied on to safeguard our information may not be effective. The technology is running a race with malware programs and malware is winning. More sophisticated and difficult to detect malware comes out every day and this is very concerning to those of us who access the Internet on a day-to-day bases.
Burned by Flame
One of the most complex examples of malware to date is Flame. Flame copies documents, audio, network traffic, and keystrokes made on a computer that’s been infected by it. The scary thing is, Flame has been active for a couple years now. During all of this time, no security software has been developed to detect this malware.
An Industry Under Siege
According to the Technology Review story, Flame is not the only malware that gets by popular antivirus software. There are many other examples the story covers but one antivirus firm labeled Flame as an example of a failure in the antivirus industry. All this means is your computer may be more at risk than you had previously thought. That is not to say that you should not take every strategy possible to protect your computer by installing and updating antivirus software. Hopefully antivirus technology will catch up and become as sophisticated as some of the malware out there.
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Keeping your antivirus software up to date is critical to safeguard your computer against malware and virus attacks, right? A recent article published by MIT’s Technology Review says that it might not be as vital as you think. Your computer may be more prone to attacks than you may like to think.
Antivirus Software: Unreliable?
The antivirus software that we have paid for and long relied on to safeguard our information may not be effective. The technology is running a race with malware programs and malware is winning. More sophisticated and difficult to detect malware comes out every day and this is very concerning to those of us who access the Internet on a day-to-day bases.
Burned by Flame
One of the most complex examples of malware to date is Flame. Flame copies documents, audio, network traffic, and keystrokes made on a computer that’s been infected by it. The scary thing is, Flame has been active for a couple years now. During all of this time, no security software has been developed to detect this malware.
An Industry Under Siege
According to the Technology Review story, Flame is not the only malware that gets by popular antivirus software. There are many other examples the story covers but one antivirus firm labeled Flame as an example of a failure in the antivirus industry. All this means is your computer may be more at risk than you had previously thought. That is not to say that you should not take every strategy possible to protect your computer by installing and updating antivirus software. Hopefully antivirus technology will catch up and become as sophisticated as some of the malware out there.
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