Antivirus software is mostly useless, hacker says

[SirEvan]

webroot Secure Anywhere 2012 Gentlemen

NOD32 sir...best rated AV out there

[SirEvan]

Dodgy porn sites and adverts on the net.

Don't forget MyHawaii_VaCat1on Photos.exe.pif.vbs

[Starbuck84]

Although this article was quite interesting to read, I think it's a matter of both worlds. Common sense while browsing and a AV should keep you free from any 'infections'. No-one is 100% secure, but you could try to get as close to it as possible. :)

[epk]

Yeah, it's not. When it comes to secury, every bit helps.

Oh, and something infected with malware after your AV and virustotal gave it a clean pass? I guess it's not impossible, but what are the chances of that?

[TEX4S]

NOD32 sir...best rated AV out there

Depends who you ask. But I do agree with you - NOD32 is definately top 3 somewhere.

If you google - you'll see both MaximumPC & PC Mag gave Secure Anywhere the highest scores possible. I think it was PC Mag that gave webroot SA the highest score ever. I dont work for webroot, but I am definately impressed by it.

[TEX4S]

While I do agree that common sense is one of the best methods for protecting against malware, it's beyond me why someone would go about without AV...let's say something gets past your common sense? or if someone else uses your computer for "urgent" business and ends up going to a site with even the simplest of malware? IMO, better safe than sorry :)

at the same time - its pretty damned ez to remove malware these days - before going to webroot secure anywhere I went almost an entire yewar without AV (after Kaspersky got so bloated and slow I just uninstalled it - only had 1 infection that whole time & I venture into areas on the net where it can get risky...

[SongHyeonDeok]

Yeah I agree with the guy for the most part. Though I think what he said, most of us already know or could've guessed.

Personally I only run MalwareBytes Pro with the protection module enabled. I choose not to run an antivirus since I don't trust any of them anyway.

[Dashel]

"H: AV is a completely wrong approach to security. If you need AV to feel secure you already failed."

So true.

[vcfan]

So from what I gather from the article is that if you really need protection you should use Linux and not depend on your anti-virus or anti malware software. Am I right?

and if you dont want to be able to run anything worthwhile on your computer, then use linux.

[Praetor]

Downloading the source for a bot, modifying it slightly so Anti-viruses don't flag it and then distributing it via usenet/email makes you a "hacker" these days :pinch:? He seems no more knowledgeable than the average script kiddie.

my thoughts exactly!

[ViperAFK]

Yeah I agree with the guy for the most part. Though I think what he said, most of us already know or could've guessed.

Personally I only run MalwareBytes Pro with the protection module enabled. I choose not to run an antivirus since I don't trust any of them anyway.

in my experience malwarebytes does a way better job of detecting today's common malware than av programs anyway. Its ridiculous how many of these rogue av malwares seem to slip right past antivirus programs. When I go to remove the malware, most of the time all it takes is scanning with malwarebytes.

[SongHyeonDeok]

in my experience malwarebytes does a way better job of detecting today's common malware than av programs anyway. Its ridiculous how many of these rogue av malwares seem to slip right past antivirus programs. When I go to remove the malware, most of the time all it takes is scanning with malwarebytes.

Indeed.

They're an excellent set of people when it comes to hunting malware. Their support is fantastic, as are their forums too.

[Buio]

Of course this guy says AV is worthless. He want people to stop using it so malware become more effective.

It's true that a new and directed attack most often cannot be stopped, but without AV the infection would be massive in days after the initial attack. AV companies are quite fast adding support for new types of malware and this stops the spreading.

[Dashel]

Buio, that might be true for certain infections but by and large AV has shown itself to be pretty impotent in catching or cleaning the most common threats. I can't tell you how many times MBam/SAS have found a keylogger that the big guys miss. Incidents like that do nothing to install confidence in either the product or the methodology.