Anti-Virus Again Proven Largely Ineffective

This is an excerpt from a colleague of mine’s blog at http://viprisk.blogspot.com/

08 February 2010
VIPRISK INTELL ITEM 08FEB10-01 TITLE: Anti-Virus Again Proven Largely Ineffective
BYLINE:
Even users running up-to-date anti-virus software still get infected with malware, according to stats from an online malware scanning service. Nearly a third (25,000 out of 78,800) of computers with up-to-date anti-virus software were discovered to be infected with malicious code when users scanned their PC using SurfRight’s HitmanPro 3 behavioral scan. SurfRight’s analysis is based on 107,435 users who put their PC through its scanner between 10 October and 4 December 2009. Around a quarter of these users (28,608) either had no scanner installed or were running security software that was out of date.

WHO IS AT RISK: ALL Windows PC-based users of commercial anti-virus software (90% of the computing world).

WHY YOU CARE:
The purpose of this intell item is not to highlight a particular product – Maverick is product agnostic. The purpose is to make users aware of the ineffectiveness of an industry that has consistently failed them since 1999. The exercise by the product does illustrate the problem that running the latest version of antivirus software is no guarantee against malware infection, contrary to what the marketing department of many security software firms have historically said.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:
Keep your AV in place, and keep it up-to-date. But also, combine that with smart surfing (carefully examining links and sites before you click on them – and use legitimate providers), filtering at the Internet Access Points, only downloading attachments from known (good) providers, and using the strongest browsers (alternatives to Internet Explorer). Those at particular risk should consider the use of secured bootable media for high-risk transactions, such as online banking, data transfers, or shopping.
Posted by VIPRisk (www.viprisk.com) at 13:58