Norton VP says - Antivirus software is dead

[citizensmith]

from https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/antivirus-dead-says-norton-software-144825044.html

/snip
Antivirus software is "dead" according to an executive at the firm that pioneered it.

Symantec (Frankfurt: SYM.F - news) , which developed software to protect computers from hackers 25 years ago, says it no longer thinks of antivirus as a "moneymaker in any way".

Brian Dye, senior vice president for information security, said software only catches around 45% of malware attacks because hackers are increasingly sophisticated.

He said the company is now moving its business towards "detecting and responding" to attacks, rather than simply trying to protect against them.

Mr Dye, who has been at the firm for a decade, admitted to the Wall Street Journal the company has slipped behind rivals, but said it was trying to catch up.

The company, which sells the Norton antivirus suite of software, has a turnover of around $1.6bn (£590m) and has an 8% share of the global antivirus market.
/snip


So 0nly 8% global share ? I see loads of this stuff. Is 8% a lot?




<heres hoping this post dont get "vanished">

 

[mraikes]

I see Norton on more than 8% of systems - but usually as an expired trial (or purchased at one time but now long expired.) Norton itself is probably using an active/paid subscription count for their percentage.

Overall, it's a refreshingly honest viewpoint and pretty much obvious to anyone who does a lot of virus removals.

Current state of the art in virus protection is like castle building in the middle ages. The attacker always has the advantage and will usually overcome the castle for a lot less expenditure than it took to build and maintain that castle. Eventually someone has to notice that castles are no longer effective at keeping out the barbarians and go on the offensive instead of remaining on the defensive.

The catch-22 of course is that neither Norton/Symantec nor any other big A/V company truly wants to stop viruses and malware at the source. They'd put themselves out of business. Dye's comment on "detecting and responding" is evidence of that. Much more profitable to treat the symptoms than stop the disease. Until it isn't.

I long ago got over the idea that A/V should actually prevent viruses - probably somewhere around the 500th time I had to explain to a customer that "Yes, you still get viruses even if you pay for anti-virus software."

 

[NYJimbo]

He said the company is now moving its business towards "detecting and responding" to attacks, rather than simply trying to protect against them.....

.... Mr Dye, who has been at the firm for a decade, admitted to the Wall Street Journal the company has slipped behind rivals, but said it was trying to catch up.

Detecting and responding is what Kaspersky is good at. I think Norton got big, fat and sloppy because they had so much market share, now they see other A/V tools that are better and are getting higher ratings and its time for them to pretend to reinvent themselves when all they really are gonna do is play catch up.

 

[coffee]

Norton eh?

I have always viewed NAV as part of the problem actually. They really have lost touch with real attempts to provide virus protection. They normally just waste resources on a windows machine and in the case of an infection it tends to block everything in/out on the firewall.

As soon as I see norton on a computer it immediately comes off unless the customer has paid for it. Most of the times its installed like adware though.

coffee

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I can say some computers I've worked on with Norton on them and you wanted to remove Norton, you almost were feeling like you were trying to remove items they protect from.

I see why they say AV is not effective, I think you almost need an antimalware suite(mbam pro/premium), and your traditional AV also. My favorite combo is avast and mbam pro.

 

[colonydata]

The Title is link bait.

It's not that Anti-virus is dead it's that Norton Symantec antivirus is dead.

I dont envy Symantec. They are trying to stay relevant, but they have a stable full of products that once upon a time had no equal. And they've slowly been overtaken or surpassed.

About the only product that is still with out equal is Disk Encryption (PGP Whole Disk). Even then it's a specialized product that few people actually need. Combined with the fact that OSes are coming with stronger encryption (BitLocker, FileVault) and then combined with Trucrypt(Which is no where near on the Level with PGP) is slowly eating up the bottom end of the market.