Can the Malware Industry be Trusted?

Joe Barr writes "Is the entire anti-virus / malware industry as rotten as it appears? I started digging into it as a result of the recent lame, unsubstantiated assertions of viral threats to Linux by Kaspersky Lab, but the practice doesn't seem to start or end with them. Who knows, maybe it's pandemic in that entire segment of the IT industry."

Comments

Work on your public image

[gr8_phk]

From TFA "The idiots in the press repeat the lie verbatim and the lie becomes real. What is the lie? That Unix/Linux is less secure than Windows. Granted, only the stupidest dolts in the universe -- and the trade press -- are going to buy that crap, but they put it out there anyway."

idiots, dolts, crap. There is a lot of name calling in there. He sounds like a teenager complaining about her friends. I don't claim to be the most articulate person around, but this guy shouldn't be writing articles. People judge you by the words you use. I got so distracted by his name calling I had to post before finishing the article, and I'm wondering if I'll be able to reach the end or take his side given the tone.

Re:AV for MacOSX: $59 -- Why?

[buckhead_buddy]

Symantec AntiVirus products for Mac (in my experience) are incredibly popular among people moving from PC's to Macs: the so called "Switcher" market. It's really just a matter of having built a reputation on fear in one market and the user feeling naked without that product.

Some argue that it's not bad to have a security infrastructure in-place, even if theres very little self-propagaiting malware out there. It makes one "ready" to deal with the inevitable threats when they are discovered. It makes one confident that they will be the first ones to recognize and recover from any future infection.

That seems like a good idea until you realize that to install and remove malware means the software will need to operate with very high permissions. Installing programs like Clam or Symantec Antivirus are possibly giving hackers more potential ways to exploit your system than if you hadn't installed the anti-malware to begin with. I think there actually have been low-level, local security holes found based soleley on security software that the user has installed.

On the Mac, I think there is more harm than good done right now with anti-virus products. It's almost like feeling you must hang that lucky pair of fuzzy dice in your new car because you think it helps you not have accidents, when in fact their interference in your driving might be what causes you to have one.