A lot of antivirus software vendors are flooding the market with packages whose titles include “Total Security.” Antivirus software packages like BitDefender Total Security 2012, G Data Total Security 2012, Kapersky Pure Total Security and many others are promising the buyers the type of security that can only be made in information security heaven.
I remember a few years back when we had a virus security breach at the office, just a few months after purchasing and deploying one of these made-in-heaven packages from a renowned antivirus software company, we got in touch with the vendor with the thinking that they would restore us to status quo within a few hours at most but to our dismay, we were still getting worse 2 days later with these antivirus security geeks moving round in circles. It was not until we decided to take our destiny into our own hands by getting technical materials and designing a viable action plan were we able to contain the attack and clean the system.
The scenario above is very direct in exposing the fact that the way antiviruses work is peculiar to its type. Signature based antivirus is the most popular. This antivirus makes use of a database to study signature or behavior of a potential virus in a system. If it finds that it is a virus, the recommended remedy is applied from the same database. Now the question is what if the computer is stolen? Or it falls off from a moving train?
The myth called “Total Security” is just for marketing purposes. I am sure that these antivirus vendors know that no antivirus software is capable of providing a service at the level of “Total Security.” The truth is there is a lot more to the utopia called “Total Security” than meets the eye through the perspective of antivirus software.
