Antivirus Software: Losing the Race to Malware

If you’re a conscientious computer user, you make certain to keep your antivirus software up to date. It’s the only way to shield your computer from viruses and malware, right? According to a recent story by MIT’s Technology Review, no.

Antivirus Software: Unreliable?

The antivirus software that we have paid for and long relied on to protect our information might not be effective. The technology is running a race with malware programs and malware is winning. More sophisticated and challenging to detect malware comes out every day and this is very concerning to those of us who access the Internet on a day-to-day bases.

Burned by Flame

One of the most complex examples of malware to date is Flame. Flame copies documents, audio, network traffic, and keystrokes made on a computer that has been corrupted by it. The scary thing is, Flame has been active for a couple years now. During all of this time, no security software has been developed to detect this malware.

An Industry Under Siege

According to the Technology Review story, Flame is not the only malware that gets by popular antivirus software. There are numerous other examples the story covers but one antivirus firm labeled Flame to illustrate a failure in the antivirus industry. All this means is that your computer may be more at risk than you had previously thought. That is not to say that you should not take every measure possible to protect your computer by installing and updating antivirus software. Hopefully antivirus technology will catch up and become as sophisticated as much of the malware out there.

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