Signature Count in 4.0.0.151 plus

Curious: My copy of 4.0.0.151 plus has now exceeded 350,000 signatures. Does this mean what the box says when it indicates that I am now protected against 350,000 potential threats, or is it there multiple counting going on? (I.e., in the exreme, I am protected against one threat 350,000 times...)

TIA

ps: I did look around to see if this had been asked/ answered already, but did not spot anything. Apologies, though, if this does repeat a previous posting.

 

I dont think you can be protected against one threat 350,000 times or even 1000 times so im about 99% sure it detects over 350,000 threats.

 

You could, theoretically, with repeated entries in a signature database.

350,000 plus threats (and growing by several k almost every day) seems a lot to me, hence the question.

 

Right now, Ewido 3.5 shows 350,734 "known threats in database." Spysweeper shows 148,048 "threat traces." Ad Aware shows 61,794 "signtures total." A-Squared shows 410,389 "signatures loaded." These figures are all relative to the way the providers classify and count definitions, but Ewido's don't seem out of line at all to me.

 

Well Ewido and A Squared are Anti-Malwares and focus more on... all malware. I don't see adaware picking up a trojan on my pc.

 

I did not mean to imply any equivalency between Ewido and Ad Aware. However, in some trojan clean up procedures, it is recommended to run Ad Aware following an Ewido scan in order to help clean traces of bundled adware. It still has a role to play, although I must admit, I keep Ad Aware around more from habit rather than from need.

 

I'm just saying, that's a reason for the high signature count difference. One focuses on a wide variety of things, while another focuses on one or two aspects.