It's time to toss out your antivirus software

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

Source: TechRepublic

By George Ou

May 26, 2006

There's been plenty of debate lately that maybe with the release of Windows Vista, we might be able to get away with not using antivirus on our computers. Well I'm about to make an even bolder assertion, that running antivirus or even additional third party security software such as firewalls on your computer makes you even less safe! Now before you start the flaming, hear me out first.

It's well understood in the security community that every additional piece of software on a computer system is another potential target for attack. That's why it comes as no surprise that another antivirus package is open to a massive attack that can affect 200 million Symantec antivirus users running Symantec Antivirus 10.x or Symantec Client Security 3.x. This is actually nothing new and virtually every Antivirus vendor has had their share of remote exploits. Even an extra security feature such as compressed file scanning opens the user up to additional vulnerabilities and all the major AV solutions have had their share of malformed compressed file vulnerabilities. Just the mere act of decompressing a ZIP or ARJ file to see what's inside of it could set off a malicious payload.

Every third party firewall product such as ZoneAlarm and Kerio have exposed the very users they're suppose to protect to complete system level compromise. Ironically the built in Windows XP SP2 firewall which always gets unfairly picked on has never had any remote exploits. Sure it doesn't provide any outbound packet filtering which is only relevant if my computer is already owned in which case any firewall could be disabled anyways, but at least it doesn't leave me wide open to a remote attacker. With the Windows Vista built-in firewall, outbound packet filtering is now supported but the pundits are already jumping on it because it doesn't turn on outbound blocking for user actions by default and requires command line manipulation to access the outbound controls. What's left out is that the XP SP2 and Vista firewall can be centrally managed via Microsoft's Active Directory group policy whereas the third party firewall vendors want you to buy an expensive enterprise management and policy deployment system. But with Microsoft's personal firewall and its superior security track record, and the fact that it doesn't cost anything extra, one has to wonder what the point of third party firewalls is.

Read entire blog here.

[Shawn]

He's a MS fanboy. Google his name.

[method77]

I disagree 100%

Windows is not capable of securing your PC

[rainbowdemon]

Like Method said. I'm going to trust Micro$hit to proterct my comp?

Don't think so!!