Is Your Anti-virus Worth Paying For?


Bangalore: The truth behind actual effectiveness of the antivirus software has finally came to light-- security software do not guarantee a sound security against viruses, reports TOI.

Consumers and businesses spend billions on the security software. But these programs rarely come handy to fight the new strain of viruses or in other words their updates lag a few steps behind to that of new tide of virus. The scenario has prompted number of startups and other companies to get creative about the approaches to tackle the virus menace.    

"The bad guys are always trying to be a step ahead," said Matthew D. Howard, a venture capitalist at Norwest Venture Partners who previously set up the security strategy at Cisco Systems. "And it doesn't take a lot to be a step ahead."

What started as a digital mischief by some geeks has eventually led to a cyber crimes where the personal and financial data of the consumers got compromised.

There’s a huge growth in number of malwares if previous decade is considered. There were fever than a million malwares in 2000, most of them were works of amateurs, but in 2010 there were 49 million new strains, according to AV-Test, a German research institute that tests anti-virus products.

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