AVLab: Advanced In-The-Wild Malware Test in November 2023

With numbers that big - yeah, that's pretty much how it works.

I know you didn't say millions - didn't say you did. I just note even 10 million is just .6% of the whole. So barely over 1/2 of 1 percent, if that were the case. But for sure, 10 million angry people can make a LOT of noise. But I don't hear it. Do you?

The truth is, it is actually pretty hard to infect a modern version of Windows (W10/11 - even W7). Microsoft has actually done a really good job of that AS LONG AS users keep it (and their security) updated, and they avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited links. This is why companies are being targeted more and more.

Huh? I said it just once before.

I am talking back in the day, Microsoft wanted to integrate AV code into XP. But Norton, McAfee and the whined and cried to Congress and the EU claiming it was their job to rid the world of malware and Microsoft was just trying monopolize the world. So Congress and the EU, hearing the word "monopolize", agreed and told MS to leave AV code out of XP.

But what happened? Did Norton and McAfee stop the bad guys? Not even close! Just the opposite happened! Malware and the bad guys proliferated - as did their very lucrative activities. But who got blamed? Norton and McAfee for failing to do their jobs? Nope. The bad guys? Nope. Microsoft got blamed relentlessly.

And yes, I repeated that because it seems, once again, you just aren't following what is being said before.

So? What's wrong with that? I use the radio in my truck because it is already conveniently there. I like the fact Windows includes a calculator. I don't have to research, find, download (risking malware) and use a different one. I don't like Windows integrated word processor, WordPad, so I did download and use a different one. I like Edge, the new integrated browser, but I also have Chrome, Pale Moon, and Firefox installed. Why can I use those alternatives? Because Windows nicely and politely allows users to use alternative solutions.

The Windows Firewall is very tightly integrated into Windows - enabled by default. But nothing is stopping you from using a different one, if you want to.

No they haven't. Did you read your own link? Microsoft is NOT being sued. The EU simply opened an "investigation". An investigation is totally different from being taken to court and sued.

And frankly, as long the 365 productivity suites allow competing "collaboration tools" to be used, I don't see how it can violate the EU's competition rules. And I know for a fact that at least some competing collaboration tools do word with 365 suites. Zoom Calendar, for example, does. So does Zoom Meetings. And I note, according to your link, Microsoft is cooperating fully.

Now this has veered way off topic. Time to move on.

 

What I'm trying to say is that not every hacked PC gets in the news. So I'm afraid this isn't a reliable way to measure how many PC's are infected IMO. Let's say for the sake of argument, there are 1 billion PC's worldwide that hackers can attack (home user and corporate) and they succeed only a tiny 0.5% of the time, that's still 5 million infected PC's, which can cause millions of dollars in damage.

I agree with this, but it's not impossible. That's why I keep repeating the part about that zero day malware can often bypass AV's, but hackers aren't focused that much on home users any more because they can make milllions in attacking corporations, like you already said. So perhaps this is the reason why less PC's are getting infected, and not so much because Win Defender is way better than third party solutions.

OK I see, you mean that only when Win Defender was integrated in Windows, less people were getting infected? But we must not forget that Win Defender has simply caught up with other solutions, who have always performed well on AV tests, even when Win Defender sucked in the Win Vista and Win 7/8 days. Think of Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Avast, so nothing special about Win Defender. But it's a great solution (on Win 10/11) for people who didn't bother to install a third party AV in the past.

What's wrong is that it might hurt competition. I'm not saying it's always bad for consumers per se. Plus that's a bad comparison that you made, since the radio in the truck is probably from some third party brand, and calculator apps aren't a billion dollar business.

Come on, now you're just nitpicking. OK correction, Slack has filed a complaint against MS, which is the first stage of a possible lawsuit.

https://slack.com/blog/news/slack-files-eu-competition-complaint-against-microsoft

 

And again, I need to repeat, MS is nowadays making billions with their business AV products (MS Defender Endpoint and Cloud), that's the reason why they decided to improve Win Defender, which it is based on. So yes, it gets lots of revenue from Defender indirectly, that's what you seem to forget. Third party AV vendors also don't really make that much money from their free AV offerings, who perform just as well as Win Defender. The real money is made in the corporate IT market which has a total size of about €180 billion in 2024.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sec...e-more-than-40-percent-year-over-year-growth/

BTW, the built-in firewall in both Windows and macOS don't block outbound connections by default, so it won't help against infostealers for example. And a lot of malware is easily able to bypass firewalls anyway by making use of code injection.