Antivirus software is dead, says security expert at Symantec

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/06/antivirus-software-
fails-catch-attacks-security-expert-symantec

This article is more than 8 years old

Antivirus software is dead, says security expert at Symantec

Information chief at Norton developer says software in general misses 
55% of attacks and its future lies in responding to hacks
Blue creepy-crawly bug crawls over green electronic circuit
Hackers are said increasingly to use novel methods and bugs in the 
software of computers to perform attacks.

Antivirus software only catches 45% of malware attacks and is "dead", 
according to a senior manager at Symantec.

Remarks by Brian Dye, senior vice-president for information security 
at the company, which invented commercial antivirus software in the 
1980s and now develops and sells Norton Antivirus, suggest that such 
software leaves users vulnerable.

Dye told the Wall Street Journal that hackers increasingly use novel 
methods and bugs in the software of computers to perform attacks, 
resulting in about 55% cyberattacks going unnoticed by commercial 
antivirus software.

Malware has become increasingly complex in a post-Stuxnet world. 
Computer viruses range from relatively simple criminal attacks, where 
credit card information is targeted, to espionage programs that spy 
on users and data but can easily be upgraded into cyberweapons at the 
touch of a button, according to security expert Eugene Kaspersky, 
founder of Kaspersky Lab, which also sells antivirus software.

>From protect to 'detect and respond'

That failure to detect issues is forcing Symantec, which has a 
turnover of about $1.6bn (£590m) and an 8% global antivirus 
marketshare – according to data from the enterprise software company 
Opswat – to diversify its products, moving into the “detect and 
respond” sector rather than the simple "protect" segment.

The switch to the detect and respond paradigm means tracking data 
leaks, hacks and other intrusions and preventing further 
repercussions from stolen data. For users, that means changing 
passwords, but for businesses that often means stopping access to 
accounts and services that have been subject to data loss or 
infiltration, as well as tracking the source of the intrusion and 
shoring up cyberdefences – something governments have been doing with 
new cyber response teams.

Antivirus still accounts for 40% of the company’s revenue, however, 
and while other security companies such as Kasperky and Intel’s 
McAfee have already moved in that direction, Symantec lags the 
movement.

Eugene Kaspersky: it’s no longer a case of whether a major 
cyberterrorist attack on the scale of that portrayed in Die Hard 4 
will occur but when.