Slashdot Mirror
Security Industry Faces Attacks It Can't Stop
itwbennett writes "The takedown of the Mariposa botnet and so-called advanced persistent threat attacks, such as the one that compromised Google systems in early December, were hot topics at the RSA conference last week. What both Mariposa and the Google attacks illustrate, and what went largely unsaid at RSA, was that the security industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats, writes Robert McMillan. Traditional security products are simply not much help, said Alex Stamos, a partner with Isec Partners, one of the companies investigating the APT attacks. 'All of the victims we've worked with had perfectly installed antivirus,' he said. 'They all had intrusion detection systems and several had Web proxies scan content.'"
This is a terribly ignorant statement. The security has actually succeeded in protecting paying customers from all but the most pernicious threats. IT security is about reducing risk, and that's what it does--successfully.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
In a whitelisting system, how do ISVs get their products and updates to their products into the major antivirus companies' whitelists? Sure, a business's IT department should handle that in a business situation, but home users often don't have a competent IT department.
You mean like how OSX and Linux does WITHOUT Antivirus?
And you mean like Windows has done since Vista also without antivirus? Or do you think UAC doesn't exist?