Antivirus is 'completely wasted money': Cisco CSO

They are only testing known malware. so that 99.*% is only measuring the known files. In reality you can only guess how much your AV is detecting of unknown malware. I myself do not use an AV

 

I have said many times this forum is a case study for paranoia.

 

Dear friend, you are right. I was being sarcastic actually (if you read further down, you will understand).

AVs are probably the only "dumb" solution for non tech users. For most Wilders members, they won't ever find anything, so they are wasted money in deed. Or even if they could find something, probably one of the dozen other layers that every Wilders member has, will stop it before the AV will.

I will stay with Twister as long as it is stable for my system. I don't care if it would be like Placebo AV in real life, because i don't encounter malware without me willing to or without me suspecting something i downloaded was malware. So, as far as AVs are concerned, i did waste 25 euros, but at least not for a resource hog or for just a year.

 

Yes, motherboard, VGA card, ... can be replaced, quite an expensive scanner.

 

Hey FuzzFas , Yeah I agree, Av's are a good BACKUP.
Looking at most of these signatures and reading what some wilders members are using is shocking.. What must they be doing to need so much real time and on demand protection.. They change their security apps like they do their underwear.. or perhaps even more so . Quite simply put, if you use common sense you'll be far better off.
I like to use HIPS since it gives me control over what goes on rather then relying on the role of a dice which av's provide.

 

Line of the week!

I know overheat protection is a built-in feature nowadays, but what happened to those viruses from the 'ye-old' days that would hammer away at my speedy Amstrad's floppy drive until it would burn out?

Were there any that burned out cd/dvd drives?

 

Oh, don't worry. They don't actually NEED so much protection. Some are hobbyists, some are victims of the paranoia that has at some point come to most of us (including me) when reading everyday about rootkits, keyloggers, Houdini-like intrusions etc.

LOL! Yeah, i am in that category too, trying to stop though. Trying security apps and combinations is a sort of fun for perverted Wilders members. I have changed firewall more than 3 times in a week in the last period.

Yes. Between someone who practices safe hex without AV and one that is risky user with an AV, the first user wins. Having an AV IS useful for the safe user too (even for mere psychological reasons), but in my case, i am not willing to accept a slowdown in my system just to run an AV that won't find anything anyway 99% of the time.

Hips is more secure than AV, that's for sure. I like HIPS too, but at some point i also get a bit tired of popups , so i change security setup (see hobbyist comment ).

I think for an "educated" about the risks, attack vectors etc user, paying 50 euros a year for an AV *is* waste of money (and eventually system resources too). I would stick with a free AV just for placebo or try to find an economic solution in the worst case.

 

I think the comments of "Fuzzfas" are right on the money.
The regular readers/contributors here are probably amongst the least likely to get infected with malware.
I also think that after you read threads on antimalware you realize how difficult it is to decide which products are "best". There are some good tests comparing AVs but even then people argue about the testing methodology. It also does me little good if a test says it caught 95% of the malware, yet I have no clue what's in the 5% that got missed. Can you imagine if ConsumerReports said a car did well in 95% of its tests and yet they didn't expand on that? Gee, what did it not do well on, the entertainment system or the braking system?
As problematic as the AV tests are, once you try to find information on Antispyware and the like you're usually reduced to internet anecdotes and a few skimpy magazine articles.
Hopefully someday there will be more transparency and it will be easier to decide what is and isn't good security software.
End of rant

 

I remove the remaining 5% also, that doesn't worry me. I'm more worried about malware that isn't on my HDD, but somewhere else in my computer.

 

Hello,
Erik, the only place left is in the head.
Relax, enjoy the world.
Mrk

 

Until the coming of nanobots

 

That's sadly true Don't know if you've already analyzed the new rootkit ITW that is totally rewriting BIOS. It has real time disassembling and, depending on which bios it's working on, it automatically patches it. Then, every new video card you install on the PC, the infected BIOS automatically patches VGA rom. This is the real rootkit body that'll infect every OS, Unix/Linux/Windows/MacOSX/QNX and so on

We're still working on finding out a definitive cure for it but it's sadly difficult and it silently infected ten of thousands of PC around the world.

Link to an article about it: http://www.zdnet.com/articles/panic_new_rootkit_infects_BIOS_no_solution_yet.html

 

^
LOL i thought you were serious

 

sheer class Marco

Now where's my tin foil hat gone lol

 

Do you really think he's saying that AV programs have 0% efficacy? Of course any given AV is going to catch a certain amount of viruses. Just because an AV can catch X number of viruses has nothing to do with his premise.