antivirus Antivirus software is increasingly useless

[NewsBot]

Is your antivirus protecting your computer or making it more hackable?

Internet security experts are warning that anti-malware technology is becoming less and less effective at protecting your data and devices, and there's evidence that security software can sometimes even make your computer more vulnerable to security breaches.

This week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) issued a warning about popular antivirus software made by Symantec, some of it under the Norton brand, after security researchers with Google's Project Zero found critical vulnerabilities.

"These vulnerabilities are as bad as it gets. They don't require any user interaction, they affect the default configuration, and the software runs at the highest privilege levels possible," wrote Google researcher Tavis Ormandy in a blog post. Symantec said it had verified and addressed the issues in updates that users are advised to install.

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[greenknight]

AV has never been more than just one weapon in your security arsenal, anyone that thought it made you safe online by itself was a fool. As for Norton, I can't understand why it's still popular - people just not paying attention?

[Tarun]

I agree. Norton has been really bad but it has improved over the past few years.

I haven't run an anti-virus for maybe 10+ years.

[greenknight]

You're armed with knowledge and caution, tools many people are unable or unwilling to get, and they require some effort. AV is not an adequate substitute for them, unfortunately.

[Tarun]

Speaking of AV software in relation to this article and the one where avast bought AVG (See here:)

. It would seem avast is no longer as good as it used to be which is really sad. Sophos is now one that I often see recommended. While I have not used it myself, I would like to test it when I get the time.

[greenknight]

In AV-Comparatives' tests, Sophos didn't do very well.

 

I'm still happy with Avira. It remains among the top performers, and not bloated - they keep adding new features, but they're optional to install.

[Tarun]

Do you have a link to that? I took a look at the comparatives not long ago and Sophos wasn't doing too bad either. It was about on par with avast.

[greenknight]

Here's the latest protection test, they don't come off so well -

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/avc_prot_2016a_en.pdf

In the latest file detection test, they do even worse -

http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/avc_fdt_201603_en.pdf

[Tarun]

Thanks for the links. Interesting to see it's not fairing as well as some people made it sound. I'm going to look into what others recommend so I can update the wiki accordingly.