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Perhaps, then, it’s more accurate to say that antivirus software feels a little like a historical vestige of past cybersecurity best practices. And most importantly, many of the cybersecurity incidents we worry about most these days would probably be pretty unlikely to be caught or solved by antivirus programs anyway. And while it may seem like more antivirus protection is always better, this is not necessarily the case-in fact, antivirus programs have been known to try to uninstall each other if they think other antivirus programs are malware because they contain known malware signatures (which they use to identify viruses).įor many of us, including me, the so-called security software packages pre-installed on our work computers have come to feel a little like malware: clunky programs that require lots of computing resources and cannot be shut down and are constantly popping up on the screen with irritating little messages.
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Apple devices, which have generally been less targeted by malware than Windows ones, also include a malware scanning tool called XProtect as well as a Malware Removal Tool. For instance, a few years ago Microsoft launched the built-in antivirus program Microsoft Defender Antivirus with Windows 10. In fact, there is now some debate over whether antivirus programs are even a particularly useful or effective line of defense for most devices, especially operating systems increasingly include built-in security features. In other words, the cybersecurity ecosystem has expanded well beyond just antivirus software.
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McAfee and Norton provide identity protection and VPN services, Kaspersky sells a password manager and a system for parental controls, and Avast has both a secure browser and a browser extension, to name just a few. Most of these companies now offer a range of other security services in addition to standard antivirus and anti-malware programs. Companies purchased licenses for all their corporate computers from one of the big vendors and it became a matter of course that all Windows computers, or at least all work computers, would be running a program from McAfee or Norton or Kaspersky or Avast, or one of the other usual suspects, in the background at all times to scan for viruses.
Once upon a time-say, 10 years ago-antivirus software was one of the standard cybersecurity recommendations for everyone. But perhaps the more interesting question is what it says about the market for antivirus software that one of the most prominent manufacturers of those products is now going the way of Kodak. That was the general gist of Cory Doctorow’s tweet about Norton Crypto this week, in which he pointed out that Norton takes a cut of the cryptocurrencies its users mine (15 percent of the crypto allocated to each miner, according to its website). So when a prominent antivirus firm takes a turn toward cryptocurrency, it’s certainly possible to interpret that move as a sneaky money grab.