Calls to regulate 'failing' AV industry

[bigc73542]

Link to story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/35987.html

-{ Quote: "Calls to regulate 'failing' AV industry

By John Leyden
Posted: 03/03/2004 at 12:05 GMT

RSA The perceived mounting cost of computer virus attacks has prompted calls for tighter regulation of the "failing" anti-virus industry.

Sections of the AV industry love quoting gargantuaan headline figures from studies of damage caused by viruses. So it is little surprise that other vendors are picking up on this trick.

At last week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, Jonathan Schwartz, EVP of Sun's software group, put up a slide suggesting Windows security problems had cost the world $100bn. He failed to say where this colossal figure came from, but said that Sun's estimate (of monetary damages) was probably even higher.

Former cybersecurity czar Richard Clark picked up the theme by arguing that...

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[Detox]

The industry isn't failing; the people are just failing to buy and use the products - this includes me until recently, for the record!

[bigc73542]

I fully agree that the av products are not being used optimally.

[ShotgunGirl]

The internet is young. An yet already there was a fear of running out of numbers. Very little planning went into planning the use of the internet an such is the way it is till this day.
When governments enlist means of gathering information from the innocent un-knowing public how can anyone blast a hacker for doing the same. Not anyone knows what purpose governments have for tons of personal information which sounds much like asking what purpose a hacker has. Two peas in a pod.
Internationally schools fail to teach computer security. Few instructors even bother monitoring what school computors are being used for. Apathy.
Whats a firewall? A brick wall that prevents a fire from spreading. HUH? The public just does not know what is what or what what is.
Why and how blame the AV industry. When the government was working on "lantern" a so called trogan the AV industry stood tall and against its use. The industry took heat and kept a steady beat.
After 911 the U.S enacted laws that breached privacy beyond what anyone ever dreamed. An does not even have people who have the knowledge to understand what they are seeing. Canada hired hackers to prevent hacking. It worked.
Blame for what...blame who for what? Give a kid a new toy and the kid plays. When the toy breaks its not the world coming to an end.
Nor is the internet going to end.
The AV industry cannot prevent a corperate employe from downloading infected email. An the AV industry cannot prevent any government from making trogans to use in catching joe blow wise guy.
Does M$ care about computer security? What billionaire cares about the computer of us plain folks?
Oh my, silly me. Just a newbes who happen to purchase a computer second hand from a guy who taught me about security because the computer was tight as my ..oops..wont go there.
Got here by way of a link that was in the Favorites. May never return but it was fun tonight. You guys know your thing or two. Good Blessing to all. This was my night out on the internet an now back to studies.

[optigrab]

We've seen diverse security products merge into "security suites" in the past couple of years. I wonder if merging an AV program with an email client firewall makes more sense than merging an AV with a firewall. Just typing out loud...

-{ Quote: " quoting: Detox link=board=18;threadid=23573;start=0#msg139364 date=1078370672] The industry isn't failing; the people are just failing to buy and use the products - this includes me until recently, for the record! " }-
@Detox
I'm pretty confident you're a capable security expert. What led you to change your style of security to a more "traditional" one?

[Detox]

I'm really not much of a security expert; I'm not bad, but I'm still more of a layman than an expert. I know what applications and practices I need to keep my machine safe, but I figure experts are the ones who really know why/how they all work, especially guys like Javacool who can create 'em.

Anyway I used only free AV (AVG) and no AT up until recently because I didn't want to open the wallet. Upon failure of my motherboard I had a "scare" and thought perhaps my cheapness had finally resulted in some sort of destructive trojan or virus... I promised myself to buy NOD32 and TDS at that time, and only later found out it was a hardware issue. I still held myself to my promise and the same "scare" got me to switch away from IE and OE to pegasus and Firefox. I think I'm running a much more secure system after getting the pants scared off of me ;-)

Next on thelist is Driveimage, I do believe. (Windows installed on drive C decided to "correct" - read "delete" all data on the other 2 hard drives upon reinstallation after the mobo replacement :-[ )

[doug6949]

-{ Quote: " quoting: bigc73542 link=board=18;threadid=23573;start=0#msg139321 date=1078363891]

Regulation is the last thing that anti-virus vendors want. But they could bring it on themselves. After all, who could fail to be alarmed by their alarmist prognostications. Some, surely, must be done
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This is nothing more than shooting the messenger. The AV industry grew out of a need to plug holes in an unsecure OS and from it's creator's "vision" for the internet.