Re: Just venting (totally OT)

Loz <lozzer2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell wrote:
Loz <lozzer2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell wrote:
Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Loz <lozzer2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mandy wrote:
[snip]


My dad subscribes to PC answers which is a pretty good pc mag for geeks
which i must admit i find very informative :-) They reckon you can get
by without using any paid for security programs if you dont mind mixing
and matching from different companies instead of getting an "all in one"
suite from one particular company.
Cool!
A shame that the software they recommend it's actually all that great.

I'd say for the average internet user surfing, emailing etc their
recomendations are pretty good.

What data do you have to back up your ideas?

Check out the industry bods who evaluate this stuff.

I did exactly that before I posted and told you I'd done so and provided
the links so you could read it too. A shame you decided to ignore it
all.

The programs i
mentioned are free and they're arent much behind their paid for
counterparts and will keep you safe *most* of the time.

But they will not do that because they miss 70%-80% of the current
active virus threat according to the industry bods who evaluated this
stuff that I have already quoted.

The current state of play is that all these anti-virus packages are
*rotten* at detecting the viruses that are `doing the rounds right now',
whenever `right now' happens to be.

They miss something like 70% to 80% of the contemporary virus threat.

That's pretty bad if you ask me.

They are rotten at detecting new viruses that the software companies
have never seen before. However, I think you'd be pretty unlucky to
encounter one of these nasties before the anti virus producer does...

<cough> that's not what the industry bods who evaluate this stuff say.

I have in fact used Virex 7 in the past and it always failed to spot the
new viruses when they started turning up in the spam. Always - *ALWAYS*
it took 2-3 *MONTHS* before they got the virus definitions updates.

So you can see, it's quite normal to come across viruses before the
anti-virus scanner can detect them - or do you think I've been
particularly unlucky?

The industry bods who evaluate this stuff say that virus scanners are
crap because formal assessments prove that they miss 70%-80% of the
current new load of viruses. I did quote these serious industry bods,
and provided the link, but you'd rather just stick with `what you know'
than read something that might upset what's already in your mind.

If you dabble in the world of P2P stuff,
porn etc then that's going to be dangerous whatever you have for security.

P2P stuff isn't dodgy if you're half-way sensible.

I'd wager that the average pc user isnt half way sensible.

<shrug> Maybe not - but there you go. There's no virus scanner can
help you much these days. They're all crap - as proven by industry
tests.

could
have mentioned programs like Threatfire from PC tools that are designed
to detect virus/malware before they have been identified but i thought
that would have been too much info for Mandy to take onboard in one go.

The only hope, given the lousy state of anti-virus software, is to get
something like that.

Yes, although i think that is not necessary for most users.

My experience and what serious security professionals say is that virus
scanners these days are *** and you need additional protection.

MS Windoze Vista is one useful item of protection, mind.

Hence, my reccomendation. PC Tools are regarded by many in the industry
as the best.

Who makes that recommendation? On what do they base their
recommendation? What are the facts about the performance of the
software?

Have a google Rowland and you will see the light ;-)

I don't Google, I use something better. And I have checked via Web
search engines.

I looked up the facts.

You read one article ;-)

I've read hundreds of articles on this subject.

I just looked up some stuff quickly tonight. It's in line with
everything else I've read from sources I've got some time for.

The anti-virus software you recommended has been
tested and shown to miss 70%-80% of the contemporary real virus threat.

And you trust it? You think that's *good*?????

I trust it for my own personal use and havent been let down by it.

How do you know? How many viruses has it spotted on your machine?

Do i
think its good that it cant recognise most new viruses, no. Will i come
across the new viruses before they have been identified by the software
producers, probably not.

My experience proves that the anti-virus vendors lag behind the virus
writers by months as a matter of routine. The viruses used to fly into
my email in-box - it used to fill up with viruses that Virex couldn't
detect, sometimes for three months beyond the date they started
arriving.

That is in line with what industry professionals are saying - except
that they say it's a lot worse now than it was when I bothered using
Virex.

Clearly, your comfortable assumptions are badly wrong.

Mind you, the shape of the attacks has changed - they've stopped doing
the `hammering everyone with virus-laden spam' recently (my inbox can
prove it), and shifted to more subtle attacks.

I forget the details. I've read so much of this stuff over the decades
that I think I'm excused a few details dropping out of my mind.

Obviously, there are no certainties but the precautions i have taken are
probably going to be enough.

The tests prove that the virus checker you use is not capable of dealing
with the current virus threat.

However, my hard drive has been backed up
so all bases are covered ;-)

Only if you maintain multiple generations of backup on removable media
which is kept both on and off site.

Rowland.

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