Antivirus Software – False Sense of Security
Computer Viruses – Good For Business
Watch any high technology thriller movie made in the last 15 years and you could be led to believe that a single computer virus could infect all of the world’s computers. Making these movies is good for the movie business, as everybody knows viruses are bad, but the viewer does not know whether it could actually happen. It’s what viruses do … right!
Antivirus manufacturers, love these movies too. They help to instil just the right amount of real public fear, to enable them to keep selling you their software licences.
Just look up “antivirus” in Google and you will see pages of pages dominated by “advertisements”, rather than good advice.
Cybercriminals – Love This Stuff
Cybercriminals, love everything you fear, as it gets you to snap out of your daily routine to take note. Humans instinctively react to fear. It’s how humans survive the perils of nature. So in the last 5 years, there has been a constant stream of “antivirus” scams including, these common requests:
- your antivirus software has expired and you need to click here to complete the licence renewal.
- our online virus scan has detected a virus on your computer. Click here to see report.
Look carefully and you will see that the scams do not even involve a real computer virus. They are simply methods to get you to provide sufficient identification to the scammer to allow them to empty your bank account, or sell your account details online.
WARNING: Computer Viruses Cause Damage!
Make no mistake, that computer viruses still exist and they can do incredible damage to the software infrastructure on your PC and potentially all the PCs connected to your network. Furthermore, if you PC is infected with a virus, then it can potentially be a threat to any other PC connected indirectly to your infected machine.
Real-time Antivirus Software – Wrong Tool For The Job
If you are running a modern PC, have an up-to-date version of an operating system and are running real-time antivirus software and believe that you are safe, think again.
In 2023, this is a false sense of security.
The biggest threat to your personal wealth and potentially, your PC and network connected devices, comes from something that real-time antivirus protection cannot see. It is the ability for a scam phone call, SMS or email, to convince you to click on a special link. This link is usually never a virus.
The link could be to a program installer for a legitimate executable file, such as the excellent TeamViewer application, or simply a small program that has no virus properties, but opens a access port from your private network, to the world somewhere. Since you a doing the “clicking” deliberately, you are then going to have to also elevate the user privileges of the operation high enough, to install system software on your PC. (highest level of authority, commonly called “root” access).
If you are running Microsoft Windows, you will know you are going into restricted computer access mode with elevated user privileges, as the system will give you a standard User Account Control (UAC) warning message. You will almost certainly ignore this message, as you know what you are doing. No operating system warning message is going to stop you now!
Too Late – The Damage Is Done
Once the cybercriminal has managed to convince you to install the aforementioned software, here is what happens. Different attacks, may involve some or all of these events:
- your real-time antivirus software is turned off
- your keyboard and mouse is disabled
- your drives are encrypted – usually just prior to the request for a ransom demand for money to decrypt the drive from the criminals
- actual virus software is installed on the PC
- nothing, but without your knowledge, your keystrokes and websites accessed are passed to a temporary computer server, set up somewhere on the Internet, for harvesting by the criminals
- nothing, but without your knowledge, your PC is simply used as a “relay station” also simply know as “bot” for more sophisticated software attack systems that use the “distributed” power of thousands of computers around the world to attempt unauthorised access to larger computer networks. Your PC becomes complicit in the crime being committed.
In all of these cases, your expensive real-time antivirus software diligently will do absolutely nothing to help you. It is was simply never designed to understand human behaviour and the ability of a cybercriminal to manipulate your good sense.
Real-time Antivirus Software – Costly Software – Poor Value
In my opening paragraph, I indicated that computer viruses are good for business for many companies. It sells software licences for real-time antivirus software, forever.
Before I suggest a more practical strategy, I need to point out that behind-the-scenes systems have evolved to manage computer viruses. The two main changes that come to mind include:
- All email providers and ISPs will not automatically pass on emails which have an executable program attached and if they do, they are likely to have antivirus software running which will scan the software for known viruses. This is free and done for you, without you having to lift a finger!
- Most common web browsers and email programs, have built-in guards to caution you that the link you are about to click is an executable file.
Cybercriminals know this too. It is because of these counter-measures, that virus attachments on emails is no longer the preferred method to get you to install their virus software.
It is increasingly difficult to accidentally, install a computer virus.
The nature of the threat has therefore shifted significantly in the last 5 years and you need to adapt to this change to stay safe.
Protect Yourself – Free Of Charge
Now that you have a better picture of the real threat to your online computing safety, you should be able to see that expensive real-time antivirus software provides very little benefit to anybody.
Furthermore, working in IT support, I often have to try to resolve issues which people have getting their normal software to run properly. It usually ends up with me instructing them to temporarily turn off their expensive real-time antivirus software and in most cases, their problem is resolved. The antivirus software is not bad, just overzealous in doing its job. Today’s antivirus software is so complex, that it consumes a serious amount of your PC resources, if it is required to run in real-time.
If you wish to take action to protect yourself, you do not need to spend more money. Just implement these rules in your online computing life:
- Never click on a browser, or email link, in any online correspondence, PC, phone, etc. where you do not have absolute confidence, in the person or company that has provided you the link to click. Remember that the forgery of well known people, or services, are common now, so scrutinise the source with absolute care.
- Never install software, or make system changes, or click OK to ignore the Microsoft Windows UAC warning, unless you understand why the request was made, and from who. This is the point at which your system has the potential to get “infected”. (It would be “patient zero” if it were a human virus)
- If you absolutely feel that you need to install software on your PC, regardless of what operating system it is running, check the installation program with a single-shot virus scanner such as ClamAV first. (ClamAV software is open source, free and equally as capable at scanning for virus signatures in any files)
- If you absolutely feel that you need to install software, or make system level changes, tell yourself that the full system backup that you made today, is nearby and ready to go, or if that fails, then you can always use he backup image from last month!
- Consider protecting yourself from yourself, by replacing your current operating system with Linux, then setting up your new system to make it extremely difficult to change system files using your normal everyday login. This site has numerous other articles covering this subject. If this is the path you wish to follow, I suggest reading this article first and then look at Private Computing, for a full overview on why you would consider putting in the effort to do this.