Most of us believe that by installing antivirus program on the computer we are safe from the threats of viruses, malware, Trojans and other cyber threats. It is of no doubt that we get substantial protection from antivirus software but the question is whether it is enough to protect us from all types of threats especially when security gets compromised. This has to be examined and ascertained in the light of certain facts and reports. This article lets you know whether the antivirus program on your system effectively protects you from all kind of threats or not. Recent malware attacks on PCs have highlighted the Microsoft vulnerabilities and weaknesses of security programs in protecting systems from exploit-based attacks. According to the findings of a leading security and testing firm, many antivirus programs failed to protect systems from attacks that exploited vulnerabilities available in the XML Core services in the Microsoft and Internet Explorer 8.0. In this study, 13 antivirus suites were tested for their ability to provide effective security. However, both the Microsoft programs XML Core and IE 8 were patched and expected to be protected from antivirus programs, only four of the thirteen suits were found to be effective. Only these four programs offered complete security against vulnerabilities.
The remaining programs were however effective but the degree of protection was not as accurate as it was in the other four programs. Protection was dependent upon how the threat has been executed with respect to the vulnerability. A chunk of the antivirus suites proved less efficient because the attacks were executed via HTTP. Some others failed to provide the optimal security because of the HTTPS that was used to execute the attack. Even the Microsoft’s Security Essential antivirus program failed to provide effective security in the above mentioned cases. After the careful observation of the cases, the researcher came out with certain conclusions as follows: The users of antivirus software should stop assuming that antivirus programs offer absolute security and that their ‘unpatched’ systems enjoy stronger security. The system remains open for virus attack in case of vulnerability.
If your system is unpatched then it might become prone to virus attacks irrespective of the antivirus software it is installed with. The authors of viruses and malware design the attack taking cues from the strengths and weaknesses of the antivirus program. They study the weakness in detail and develop the malicious program in a way that it uses that weakness to get easy access to the system. There is no denying the fact that antivirus programs are effective in spotting the threats that are developed by using techniques such as Javascript and Unicode. Yet some other techniques can definitely find loop holes in the security program. These threats can disable the security veil and get easy access to the system or website. The above mentioned discussion reveals that although most of the antivirus programs can provide us the first layer of security to prevent threats but they are still not strong enough to make the system impregnable to the various threats and exploits.