Symantec is a company we’re sure many of you guys are familiar with. The company makes anti-virus software, like Norton, but interestingly enough in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Symantec’s SVP of Information, Brian Dye, was quoted as saying that anti-virus is “dead”.
He claims that anti-virus tools these days are no longer as effective as they once were, and that they catch less than half of all the attacks. We’re not sure if he’s talking about anti-virus software in general, or if he’s just talking about Norton, but we guess the premise is that more hackers are beginning to outsmart such tools, faster than they can patch them.
Instead of focusing on trying to keep the hackers out, Dye talks about how their focus has shifted to minimizing damage rather than trying to prevent them. This has prompted Symantec to start selling both recovery services and offer threat briefings to corporate customers to better educate them on what kind of dangers they can expect, and how to prevent them.
This does not mean that Symantec will be dropping Norton entirely, far from it, especially since Norton accounts for more than 40% of the company’s revenue. While we doubt that anti-virus software will go away completely, perhaps educating users on the dangers of clicking unsafe links and downloading suspicious files could go a long way in protecting them as well.
What do you guys think? Has the role of the anti-virus software diminished over the past few years, compared to the importance it used to have back in the day? According to Dye, “If customers are shifting from protect to detect and respond, the growth is going to come from detect and respond.”
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