So do you need antivirus software on your computer? What about your smartphone? What’s the future for separate antivirus suites?
Why Do You Need Antivirus Software on Your Computers?
There is a very wide online network and now, the majority of computers can communicate with each other. Everyone can send files, data, and different content to each other. Computers or mobile devices can download random content over the internet. Technologies such as antivirus software are needed to control all these potential areas of vulnerability.
For example, you might download an .exe file or similar from the internet and run it. This file could read critical data and leak it online, encrypt files and demand a ransom, as per the ransomware model, or otherwise cause problems. So your computer must have a mechanism to distinguish the good files from the bad. That’s what antivirus software does: finds problems, alerts you, and, in most cases, fixes the issue.
Do You Need Antivirus Software on Your Smartphone?
Unlike computers, things work a little differently on smartphones. In particular, iOS is more sensitive to malware and viruses than some operating systems.
As Apple often warns, if you are going to download software, you need to use the App Store for it, because the software in the App Store is audited. Moreover, you can get information about the developer of the software you downloaded here. This greatly reduces the possibility of malware or virus infecting your device. The same can be said of Android—you need to stay on the official Google Play Store.
In addition, the software you run on iOS has few operating system-level privileges. This means that one piece of software cannot read the data of another. Imagine you download a photo editing app; this app can’t access your WhatsApp messages or bank app.
Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether you need third-party antivirus apps on your smartphone. They offer their own advantages (for instance, VPNs, in many cases), but as long as you don’t jailbreak your phone, visit suspicious sites, or download anything from unofficial sources, your smartphone already has capabilities to keep you safe.
Problems with Antivirus Products
Although antivirus software is helpful in many ways, they also have some problems. There are new examples of malware every day, and as such, it becomes very difficult to develop healthy and stable software. Here are some problems with antivirus suites.
Blacklist Method Approach
Antivirus companies add the signatures of malicious software to their databases regularly. These databases are full of tens of thousands of different signatures.
Good antivirus software should easily detect both malware released last week and malware released 10 years ago. In other words, when the antivirus encounters new software, it calculates its signature and compares it with its huge database of signatures. If no match is found, it considers the software safe.
For example, imagine that you are preparing an invitation list. Instead of a 10-person guest list, you’ve made a 999,990-person non-invited list. You check the invitees from the non-invited list, and if you can’t find that person on it, you allow them to enter. A waste of time and resources. The same is true could be said for antivirus software. The list of uninvited malware in the database is growing every day. As a result, this method might not be sustainable.
They Create Additional Attack Surface
Antivirus software, like all other software technologies, consists of code. There are certain security flaws as a result of this. Even reputable antivirus providers are susceptible to significant flaws like remote code execution. Even if this software is often tested and updated, the risk cannot be disregarded.
Privacy Issues
Many antivirus programs send some files on your device to their servers. The goal here is to analyze these files in much more detail. This could be dangerous if you are doing a job that requires high confidentiality.
In addition, most antivirus suites keep an eye on your HTTPS traffic by essentially performing a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack. Although they do this to detect malicious websites, it is a curious position to take from a privacy point of view. There are plenty of reasons to believe that security software tracks you!
Budget Problems
Antivirus businesses spend a lot of their budgets on protecting their databases and keeping themselves updated day by day. If you are a company with hundreds or thousands of computers, you may have to pay a small fortune for antivirus software licenses. This is a troubling situation for companies that already have budget problems.
Do You Need an Antivirus Suite?
So how can you stay safe? The iOS model seems more secure than other operating systems; similarly, so do Macs. You can take Apple’s idea of cybersecurity and extend it to your wider approach to staying secure.
For example, you should only download software from a supervised application store. If the device you’re using is a corporate computer, you probably don’t even need to use app markets. A limited number of necessary software such as web browsers, text editors, and office programs should already be installed. If so, you or your company could simply apply the whitelist method instead of the blacklist one. In such a case, you don’t necessarily need antiviruses because only the limited software you allow will run. However, if you’d rather be safe than sorry, by all means use an antivirus too.
Most individuals will need antivirus software regardless. Anyone can accidentally download something malicious, so it’s better to take a belt-and-braces approach. Nonetheless, if you don’t have an antivirus, you could use online tools to security-scan files.
What Will Happen in the Future?
The problem is, vulnerabilities persist in everything. If a “secure” operating system were developed, exploits would still be found. And so, we’ll all have to rely on antivirus software for some time.
However, while we encourage antivirus suites for individuals and corporations, you also need to know that antiviruses alone are not enough most of the time.
