Symantec vice-predisent Brian Dye recently claimed that antivirus software is dead, causing ripples in the infosec world, and a barrage of statements both in defence of this idea, and in denial.
Lutz Blaeser, MD of Intact Software Distribution, says AV is far from dead. “The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of new malware samples are discovered each month. In fact, close on three new strands every second. What is crucial here is the speed at which businesses can respond to new threats, and how the technologies involved actually deal with them.
“For sure, AV that relies solely on signature-based processes for rooting out malware is AV of the past, and pretty much obsolete. Today’s security products must combine proactive technologies with the traditional reactive ones, if they are to hope to protect against unknown threats.”
He adds that top security vendors have been combining proactive and reactive technologies in their solutions for some time, and offer multi-layered security that blocks known threats, fights off the unknown ones, and prevents vulnerabilities in software from being exploited.
The fact that thorough and effective protection of the IT environment needs technologies and solutions over and above AV is not in dispute, says Blaeser. “Data leakage prevention (DLP), intrusion prevention (IPS), encryption tools, firewalls and policy and device management systems are also vital links in the security chain.”
In his opinion, securing the highly complex IT environments of today is an enormous challenge. “Solid AV solutions are a core part of a multi-layered defence strategy, and are still the top choice for protection against malicious code. While not a silver bullet on their own, any business which chooses to do without AV, does so at their peril.”
This, he says, extends to private users too. “AV is still the best hope consumers have for protecting their home networks and PCs. The average home user has absolutely no need for state-of-the-art, multi-layered security solutions, and over above encryption for highly personal documents, DLP, IPS and so on, would really be overkill. AV remains the home user’s best bet.”
“AV is far from dead, it remains a useful, and highly effective tool against malware. Good security is all about layering, and not relying on a single technology or solution to protect your business from attackers,” Blaeser concludes.
