Most Users Think They Have AntiVirus Protection, While Only Half Do 294
SkiifGeek writes "A survey carried out by McAfee and the NCSA found that while more than 90% of users believed that they were protected by antivirus or antimalware products that were updated at least once a week, only 51% actually were. 'Even with significantly growing awareness by everyday users of the need for efficient and effective antivirus / antimalware software, and the increasing market penetration achieved by the security industry, the nature of rapidly evolving Information Security threats means that the baseline of protection is outstripping the ability of users to keep up (without some form of extra help).' The study is available online in PDF format. What sort of an effect does this sort of thinking, and practice, have on the overall security of your systems, networks, and efforts to educate?"
How is this new? (Score:3, Insightful)
New computer users forget to update antivirus. In other news water is wet, and fire is hot. Film at 11...
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Re:How is this new? (Score:5, Insightful)
How can that be? (Score:2)
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Think again! Most budget computers come with a 30 day trail. Don't pay that one, and you're screwed... If you pay, you are screwed too because those Antivirus programs (Symantec, I'm looking at you) are crappy overpriced products.
Your only hope is knowing a Geek/Nerd that is willing too help. Contrary to popular belief on slashdot, not everybody has that luxury.
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About $36,000 dollars. That's roughly the cost of a Comp Sci bachelor's degree at a state university.
Seriously, knowing what the hell you are doing is far more effective protection than relying on a $50 chunk of software. I've had three "malware" infections so far. One was an advertising distribution peer-to-peer network that was intentionally installed by a commercial CD-ROM as a part of a kid's game (Mattel
Re:How can that be? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have one friend who bought it merely because it was the only way he knew to make his computer work again. Norton is so much more complicated to uninstall than other software that he couldn't figure it out.
YAY Shovelware!
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My uncle's computer was having all sorts of problems with slowness and other performance issues. I uninstalled Norton and installed AVG. It was running fine after that.
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One of my son's fellow co-workers wanted him to look at their computer to see why it wasn't connecting to the internet via the browser. When he got to checking he found a problem he has s
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On Mac OSX, most programs don't come with an uninstaller, since that is unnecessary. Just drag the program to the trash
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For Mac users, uninstallers do exist for the very few programs that do install stuff in the OS. An antivirus program would likely be in that category. These are merely a convenience, because unlike Windows, unless you're talking root-kit, malware doesn't have as many places to hide. Malware doesn't do much good if it can't be made to start running automatically either at boot time or when a user l
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And as for being immediately compromised, doesn't anyone use a rout
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Windows' security model doesn't help here
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On the other hand, the virus update doesn't seem to work unless the administrator is logged on.
The you have a crappy antivirus program. Even AVG Free does this in Limited User. I used Limited User everywhere on my computers, I rarely log in as Admin. Of course, I do have the knowledge to set up a machine that way. Something most -normal- people cannot...
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Re:How can that be? Easy (Score:5, Funny)
So tell, me what will happen the day you catch the secretary account in bed with the administrator account??? This sounds better than a soap opera!
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Pfft! Like that would ever happen...
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Our pc tech here is constantly moaning about a machine that's got malware that has planted itself in the registry of every user on the system (admin and standard) and if he misses even ONE of those when cleaning, it'll just
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I don't understand... (Score:5, Funny)
Why do I keep getting popups?
It's the AntiVirus companies fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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Back when I was on AT&T Broadband, they insisted I run their "diagnostic" spyware package before they would do anything to fix any communications issues (God help you if admitted to using NAT or an external firewall.) I ended
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Well, let's say you have a DSL service that comes with a "free" bridged DSL modem, most likely your ISP will refuse to troubleshoot any non-sync-related issues unless you get rid of any NAT routers, hardware firewalls, software firewalls and such since they have to assume you're a moron who just set his firewall to "Block all". You see, 99% of the users who call in about problems like this don't know enough to gain any kind of access to t
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OK. My computer did not come with any antivirus trial or program. At work, I use a computer and admin over 1,000 other computers, and none of them have installed or came with an antivirus thing.
Back in 1994, I
Re:PARENT IS DEAD ON!!! (Score:4, Informative)
PEBKAC (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sure is. Make protection that's not annoying. If you make a software that you know is annoying, it should not surprise you when people refuse to use it.
i think this may be caused by... (Score:2)
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Like some other comments I've seen, it seems like most problems are probably related to "free 60 day trial" vers
To be fair... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:To be fair... (Score:4, Funny)
If your Etch-A-Sketch is shared between 2 or more kids, you can bet that viruses will be shared among them. There's nothing more infested than a toddler.
I used to run a small computer repair business. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few years later, almost all the computers I worked on had antivirus and/or antispyware software... yet almost every single one had some sort of virus, usually a botnet-style worm, or at least loads of spyware. In my opinion this is proof that viruses are something one can only avoid through overall system security and, most importantly, knowledge about computers--no antivirus will protect you if you cannot protect yourself.
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I use Spybot S&D (immunize and don't install teatimer, it's annoying (unless you've got an infection, then use it to help contain it and remove it after you're done) and sometimes Windows Defender on those machines which need periodic scanning w/o user intervention.
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True. Even though I run OS X most of the time, I won't open email attachments or download random software programs because I'm just used to having to have that behavior on a Windows PC back in the late 90s early 00s. Every now and then I get paranoid and look at all the open processes and look
ISP incomplete advertising partially to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I have gathered, half believe the ISP installed and updates their AV in the same way Microsoft works. They believed that the ISP installed AV when they set up service and that the AV program gets updated the same way MS updates their system. The other half believe the ISP runs antivirus for them on the line so they do not need anything installed.
When I inform them that they need their own, they ask how much. I inform them of AVG and ClamAv* and that those two are at no cost. They then state they cannot be any good if they are free and they go buy either Norton or McAfee.
*I am now Linux only, so I am not familiar with current Windows AV programs. I have Clam on a few systems and AVG on a few others.
Re:ISP incomplete advertising partially to blame (Score:4, Insightful)
People are happy with anything they can attribute SOME sort of selfish motive to.
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That makes sense, obviously since they knew all about the antivirus situation on their PCs they must know better than you about what antivirus to use. *rolls eyes* Maybe that ASUS motherboard with SplashTop will be the only desktop these people really need... they could've stumbled onto something here. Of course, livecds do the same and are more functional... attach USB storage for downloads and you'r
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My ex recently moved flat, and moved broadband provider at the same time (from Orange to Sky). The installation CD she received along with her router installed McAfee.
I don't know about wherever you live, but here in the UK some of those people who believe that their ISP installs AV software when their service is set up are correct.
Does anyone need anti-virus software? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm just isolated from the sort of users who are so stupid as to get viruses on their PCs...but are there any left? And does anti-virus software help these people?
Of course they do (Score:3, Interesting)
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Teenagers. My 14 year old infected her computer the other day when she received a copy of a IM worm that disguised itself as a
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Not only. I used to get that "here are my new pics" message from a friend of mine. He's a friggin' CS student. When I told him to get rid of it he said he doesn't bother since the virus didn't have any noticeable effect on his system. I couldn't believe my ears...
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I never run any anti-virus... (Score:5, Funny)
No impact (Score:2)
None.
If it's desktop systems we run, I assume those systems are locked down, antivirus and firewall running, and the users don't have admin rights.
If it's networks or servers, those systems are locked down every way possible to protect them from the compromised systems.
What impact does it have on my interactions with families and friend looking for free tech support?
Now there, there may be an impact.
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(The biggest impact was scraping Norton off. Did you know Symantec actually has a tool on their web site to remove all modern Norton products from your system?)
For this, $100 gift card showed up
Heh. (Score:2)
Solution #2: Mac OS X.
Solution #3: No computer for you! Come back, one year!
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I have news [slashdot.org] for you...
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Solution #2: Mac OS X.
So the solution to thinking your protected on Windows but not really is to move to thinking you are magically protected because "Linux and Mac don't get viruses"?
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So the solution to thinking your protected on Windows but not really is to move to thinking you are magically protected because "Linux and Mac don't get viruses"?
That's absolutely right. Effectively, Linux and Macs don't get viruses.
Look, we can talk till the cows come home about technical details and 'potential' risk. But it all comes down to this: Am I willing to trade potential exposure tomorrow for the certainty of malware infection today? The answer to that is a gimme.
I sell computer systems, and my first advice to people is, 'If you don't absolutely need Windows, buy a Mac. If you do absolutely need Windows, try a Mac with Parallels installed.' And I do
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Of course not. That's why we never see stories like these [slashdot.org].
Look, we can talk till the cows come home about technical details and 'potential' risk. But it all comes down to this: Am I willing to trade potential exposure tomorrow for the certainty of malware infection today? The answer to that is a gimme.
What's all this certainity business? I have no problems keeping crap off of my Windows boxes, and I'm not alone. All it takes is some c
Windows AV Programs (Score:2)
I am using a cracked version of McAfee Security Center, mainly because my ancient copy of Symantec Antivirus stopped being able to update its definitions.
I STILL can't update my definitions with the cracked version, right now I'm looking into an FOSS antivirus.Could someone please recommend an option for the unprotected?
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It isn't as good as some paid AV software, but as long as you aren't going to russian crack sites it should be all you need.
ClamWin (Score:3, Informative)
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Then again, we always get a few people in here who claim the "Get Connected!" cd totally broke their system. These people are usually the same people who have trouble installing Offic
I hate anti virus software (Score:2)
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Because either you have a crappy anti-virus program (I'm looking at you, Norton) that needlessly hogs system resources, or perhaps it's time to upgrade your computer...
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Whats the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
most people "think" or most people "say"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Its not the 30 day trials... (Score:2, Insightful)
Antivirus software, and *good* antivirus software (Score:5, Informative)
I recently had to fix my parents' machine, because it got massively infected. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I ended up flattening it and reinstalling XP from Microsoft's disks rather than the crappy OEM version that was preinstalled on it, but that's another story.
My father had a subscription to Norton. So, why didn't Norton protect him against the virus? Well, a quick install and run of AVG later, I figured out why: Norton had been lobotomised by the virus. Half of its files were corrupted beyond repair. Most of the Javascript that its crappy UI was written in had been replaced by binaries. It was like one of those caterpillars whose brain gets eaten by wasp larvae, and the caterpillar never notices. It was horrific.
Unfortunately I still can't persuade him that AVG (which is free, which gets good reviews, which actually seems to work, and which doesn't keep popping up crap in your face) might be a better choice on the new system; but hopefully the new improved installation will protect him. We'll see.
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Re:Antivirus software, and *good* antivirus softwa (Score:2)
The Horrible Graph (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, who here would allow a "survey group" have access to conduct a remote scan on their computer? Methinks this survey is skewed, even if (especially because) they used quotas.
Has anyone realized (Score:2)
I'm tired of those companies and their products. They overcharge for their products, force you to upgrade when the upgrade barely offers any additional coverage, and their products slow down computers (my biggest pet peeve).
A few preventive measures can make virus checking useless. Use firefox, not IE. Don't use outlo
Maintenance (Score:2)
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Stop listing porn as a reason for viruses and spyware. You can get infected with either from almost anywhere.
I went 18 months without AV software on my Windows 2000 machine a few years back. I did not get infected with any viruses or malware. I was still using that system until March of this year when I moved to Debian Etch.
Re:Do you even need antivirus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but how do you know, if you haven't used anti-virus software in years? Do you expect a little flag to come up saying "help help I'm infected, get an anti-virus program!"? You could be infected and not even know it.
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If it's sending v14gR4 emails on the sly, sure it can!
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1d10t (Score:2)
Buddy, you're not at the top of the intelligence heap for running without AV and you're definitely downright stupid for admitting you run pirated software on a public forum. People from Microsoft browse here too you know. Jesus man, if you don't want to buy your software then show some integrity and completely switch to free alternatives.
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I can see the point that you are making but:
How will Microsoft trace him from his sig? Is /. obliged to give out user information to anyone who asks? Do you really expect NSA to devote effort in trying to track him down. So Microsoft browse this forum - so what? They are only a company and have no legal powers - at least not outside the USA.
If he is not in the US, what do you think Microsoft will do? What evidence do they have? His 'admission'? Nope - there are people on /. who claim all sorts of t
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