The End of Signature-Based Antivirus Software?

nosig writes "PCMagazine is running a story around the latest AV-TEST response time and proactive detection test for the latest MS05-039 vulnerability related attacks. The test results were announced by the author to the focus-virus discussion list. What's really impresive, besides the huge difference between response times among antivirus companies, is that two products succeeded to proactively detect all 6 attacks without any signature update. "

Excel sheet Zip file????

[gtrubetskoy]

From the referred posting: You can find the information how fast the AV companies have reacted with a solution against Bozari.A/B, Drudgebot.B, IRCBot!Var and Zotob.A/B in an Excel sheet (18 KB ZIP file) which is available at http://www.av-test.org./ [www.av-test.org]

At first glance this looks like a clever variation on "important document attached" e-mails we all get every day...

The death of X

[twigles]

This week on /., "The Death of [fill in the blank]!" It's just one test, slow down and breath.

In other words...

[cryptoz]

The anti-virus companies have finally learned that the type of viruses they're creating are too difficult to fight against. So they've decided to start writing slightly new viruses that can be more easily killed through their new type of program, which will cost the unsuspecting Windows user, oh, only a few dozen more dollars a month.

I love the world of GNU/Linux.

I don't know about you, but I saw this coming.

[Bnderan]

Sheesh...This should be obvious to anyone that MS05-039 totally outclasses MS05-038 in proactive detection test response time. NTIKWTFIATA

Re:Excel sheet Zip file????

[milimetric]

what I find interesting here is that whereas in the detection time sorted column Symantec performed at an average level, in the alphabetically sorted column they performed very badly, being one of the last ones in the list. Judging by a quick glance at this, I will switch my antivirus software to AntiVir which was at the TOP of the list.

Re:The death of X

[woah]

Death of X?

Not my X!

*sob* *hugs monitor running X session*

Re:well

[Drakonite]

unless you are suggesting the AV companies were the virus authors? :-)

I might suggest that, but I don't want a sudden string of viruses to attack my computer...

Re:well

[jazman_777]

In true /. tradition, let me give a shoddy example.

Mod parent down. The properly shoddy example would have had something to do with cars.

Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, Bad Car Analogies.

Re:Excel sheet Zip file????

[FragHARD]

well I'm not giong to open it ....... Hey I know lets get mikey to open it, he'll open anything!

Re:Excel sheet Zip file????

[slashdevnull]

(You are using OpenOffice under Linux or BSD, right?)

Yeah, but they're running it as root.

Re:Virus proliferation

[sootman]

Average Joe doesn't see why they should have to pay to keep their AV software updated. ("I paid $XXX for this machine, and they want more? Heck no.")

Understandable. $30 was a lot of money in ancient Roman times.