Antivirus software is dead, says Symantec's VP of Information Security

Brian Dye, VP of Information Security at Symantec has acknowledged that the antivirus software is dead. He said that the antivirus doesn't make money anymore and Symantec is now exploring other ways to handle the cyber security problem. Symantec is known globally for the commercial antivirus software 'Norton Antivirus' that pretty much graced all the home and business computers in the late 90s. However the antivirus software began losing its sheen because of its poor efficiency in preventing the malware from making it to critical business machines.

The hackers have always been a step ahead in the race. Mr. Dye now thinks that instead of controlling the entry of the hackers into the systems, the focus of the security industry would be on minimizing the damage. For example, Juniper Networks, one of the leading corporations working in the area of networking asks its customers to put fake data on their machines, so that even if hacked; the intruders will have data that is useless. Another company named Shape Security Inc., based out of Silicon Valley, assumes that the hackers will find out a way to steal sensitive data like debit/credit card numbers and is working on making it tad difficult for the hackers to use the stolen cards to make purchases.


Symantec's approach is likely to be similar. According to #-Link-Snipped-#, the company is in the process of creating its own rapid action team to help the businesses that have been hacked. The team will investigate the hacks and brief the clients about the hack along with the purpose of the hack.

Mr. Dye has been with Symantec for over a decade and believes that in order to keep Symantec relevant and revenue generating, it must adopt a novel approach. The solutions developed in the 80s aren't effective anymore and the efficiency of the antivirus software has fell down to about 45%. The hackers always discover new bugs in the systems and exploit them. It's interesting to note that about 40% of company's current revenue comes from anti-malware software installed on individual machines and there's no plan to drop the Norton Antivirus.

We're curious to know what our fellow engineers think about the necessity of the antivirus software. We've had a pretty interesting discussion in an old discussion on CE: Best Antivirus: Post your rating and experience. Share your opinion below.