Are you using antivirus? Most people would be surprised to find out that store-bought antivirus is practically useless these days. Antivirus only prevents the threats it is told to lookout for, when in reality, there are hundreds of unknown unidentifiable threats. Threats that cannot be detected nor identified, will bypass antivirus. Hackers are becoming smarter every single day, leaving loophole vulnerabilities in systems using traditional antivirus. In this article, we’ll discuss if antivirus is useless. Listed below are a few threats that can easily bypass your store-bought antivirus.
Is Antivirus Useless?
Threats That Bypass Antivirus
- Advanced Threats
- An advanced threat is an attack in which an unauthorized user gains access to a system or network and remains there for an extended period of time without being detected.
- Polymorphic Malware
- Polymorphic malware is a type of malware that constantly changes its identifiable features in order to evade detection. Many of the common forms of malware can be polymorphic, including viruses, worms, bots, trojans, or keyloggers.
- Malicious Documents
- Malware can easily be spread through malicious documents. Malware creators use different techniques, making it hard for malware analysts to identify the patterns, extract, and understand the malicious code.
- Fileless Malware
- Fileless malware is a type of malicious software that uses legitimate programs to infect a computer or system. Fileless malware does not rely on files and leaves no footprints, making it very challenging to detect and remove.
- Encrypted Traffic
- Malicious actors can hide their activities from inspection by ensuring that the traffic between the victim and the attacker’s server is protected by end-to-end encryption.
These threats cannot be detected nor identified by antivirus, leaving threats and vulnerabilities within your system. 
If Antivirus is useless, what do I use to replace it?
MEDR (Managed Endpoint Detection & Response) is one of the many cybersecurity solutions we offer. It protects against the widest array of cyber threats by preventing known and unknown threats in real time. Devices self-defend and heal themselves by stopping processes, quarantining, remediating, and even rolling back events to surgically keep endpoints in a perpetually clean state. MEDR is not sold at your local Best Buy and is only sold by security experts.
What else can I do?
There are many things you can add to your security stack to ensure the uttermost protection. We recommend all organizations have data backups and a disaster recovery in place. Data backups are the storage of files and data to a separate location so that in an event that the files or data is lost or damaged, data can be restored fully. Disaster recovery is the act of restoring files and data in a timely manner. Continuous Cybersecurity Training is critical for every employee in the organization. All it takes is one employee to click on a phishing email for your whole system to then be hit with ransomware. Hackers are becoming smarter every single day, leaving one-and-done trainings outdated. Everyone in the organization need to be aware of current threats, risks, and vulnerabilities, as well as what to be on the lookout for. Use a password manager! Password managers are an easy way to increase your security stance. Using a password manager prevents you from reusing passwords, and creates strong, unique complex passwords, keeping them all in one place. We recommend 1Password! All you have to remember is one long, unique password as your “master password”.
All in all, Antivirus is Useless
If your organization is using a store-bought antivirus, we highly recommend you consider making the switch to an MEDR (Managed Endpoint Detection & Response). You are with left loophole vulnerabilities, that can easily be filled. Hopefully this article sheds some light on whether or not Antivirus is useless.
Check out our infographic on “Why Antivirus Is Useless” here. Feel free to print, download, or share the infographic with your employees or colleagues.
If you have any questions regarding the difference between antivirus and MEDR, feel free to give us a call at 479-434-1400.
