An interview from CBC.ca learns us that many security experts agree that antivirus software isn't doing a good on protecting against today's threats. Cybercriminals increasingly focus on social engineering and phishing and no longer on circumventing antivirus software.
Canadian University professor Mohammad Mannan states in the interview that he was surprised how bad antivirus and parental control software is, including those of popular brands. The majority of these applications bypass the browser's security measures to be able to scan the user's encrypted internet traffic. To make the connection secure again, the applications replace the browser security measures with their own. The way they do this is bad, according to Mannan. He reports that some applications didn't even "make it secure in any sense".
Mannan therefore recommends to turn of any functionality in antivirus software that checks whether a site is safe or not. The professor himself hasn't used antivirus software for years as he feels they hardly have an advantage and have the disadvantage of slowing down the computer and introduce new vulnerabilities.
Other security experts who were interviewed by CBC.ca state that virussoftware is becoming increasingly useless nowadays. Especially because cybercriminals now focus on the weakest link in computer security, the user. Due to social engineering and phishing , antivirus products no longer protect users against 80-90% of all threats, according to the experts. They estimate antivirus products now protect against less than 10% of threats due to the new methods used by cybercriminals.
The experts also warn against having a false sense of security if you have an antivirus installed. The biggest threat to worry about nowadays is ransomware, according to the experts. Malware that encrypts files on the computer and demands a ransom to decrypt them.
