Antivirus Company Symantec Thinks Antivirus Is 'Dead'

Antivirus Company Symantec Thinks Antivirus Is 'Dead'Symantec, the creator of Norton antivirus, is now moving in a new direction because antivirus is no longer a viable market. Symantec senior vice president for information security, Brian Dye, made the company’s plan clear during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

According to Dye, antivirus is dead and he is helping to lead the company away from that market and towards ones that are actually going to be important in the next few years.

Even though Symantec may not be focused on releasing tools like Norton Antivirus that everyone is supposed to install to protect their computer, it is still completely focused on security. The only reason that the antivirus maker is moving away from some of its products is because regular antivirus simply isn’t that effective against the type of attacks that plague computers now.

Just a few years ago, antivirus software used to be bought right alongside new PCs all the time, with most consumers understanding the importance. However, as time has passed, the majority of people who still care about antivirus have moved to free tools. As a result, Dye said that antivirus wasn’t even a “moneymaker” for the company.

The new Symantec approach primarily involves business. Rather than keeping a list of known viruses and scanning a computer to make sure there aren’t any present, “detect and respond” is the new business model. By that, Dye means any of Symantec’s future software will be geared towards finding breaches as soon as it occurs and then dealing with them to prevent significant damages.

Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly common in the world of web-based businesses and simply using antivirus tools has never been a reasonable option on the enterprise level. Now, even consumers are not protected by costly antivirus tools, since free ones do more than enough.

Summary: Symantec, the creator of Norton antivirus, says that the antivirus software market is dead. As a result, the company is moving towards the “detect and respond” business model, which primarily involves business. Antivirus is no longer sufficient to keep data safe, since known viruses usually aren’t employed during an attack.

image via norton