Why are security professionals do not use antivirus software

Last year, companies worldwide spent more than three billion dollars on anti-virus software, and private users, and even more - about five billion.

Another $ 6.5 billion estimated market firewalls, according to research firm Gartner. Known in the past, a hacker MafiaBoy Jeremiah Grossman (Jeremiah Grossman), now - the technical director of White Hat Security, considers it a waste of money.

Of course, Grossman has its own interest, to articulate this point of view, because his firm is engaged in consulting in the field of computer security. One of the first tasks in a conversation with a client - explain that they have installed anti-virus software does not protect against all existing threats. Moreover, it does not protect at all from any real threats that really threaten the company (information leakage, industrial espionage, sabotage, etc.).

Tellingly, Grossman was not alone in his mistrust of the antivirus software, says Wired. Many security experts also do not install antivirus software on your personal computer. They are smart enough to not go to questionable sites and do not open files from untrusted sources, so that the typical route of infection they do not work, and these ways are the focus of anti-virus.

Experts also believe that anti-virus software is often not useful not only for them but for corporate users. They say that over the past ten years, the effectiveness of anti-virus markedly decreased. The reason is that if someone really has set a target to attack the company, it will check its advance method to the most anti-virus products, and make sure that they do not find the threat. There's even a free web site called Virus Total, which allows a malicious file to verify all popular antivirus software.

However, just abandon the anti-virus companies do not have the opportunity. The fact that this is the first line of defense against the stupidity of the rank and file employees. Yes, anti-virus software do not protect against targeted attacks, but they are still effective against the stupidity of office workers, who tend to go for bad sites, open files from unknown sources and do everything else that a security will not do. In addition, some companies are required to have anti-virus, in accordance with state regulations. For example, such a requirement is contained in the Standard Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard for the payment systems.

However, many security consultants insist that the company would be better off spending their budgets, not on the monthly payments for the licenses box products, and more reasonable, for example, on a careful analysis of the vulnerabilities in corporate networks, the overall security audit log analysis, penetration tests etc. Experts agree that anti-virus and firewall are useful, but now the company is too expensive to pay for this "passive" protection, while the investment in the "active" defenses are more effective.