Clueless anti-virus products/vendors (was Re: Sober)

Mon Dec 5 04:30:26 UTC 2005

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> In message <B6621ED4D0AD394BBA73CA657DFD8976869630 at MSPEXBE01.wamnet.inc>, "Chur
> ch, Chuck" writes:
> >
> >What about all the viruses out there that don't forge addresses?
> >Sending a warning message makes sense for these.  Unless someone has
>
> A-V companies are in the business of analyzing viruses.  They should
> *know* how a particular virus behaves.

This has also been said before, but... they are also in the business of
SELLING their product. It seems that the 'default' (note I don't either:
use av, nor scan emails for virii so I'm not sure what defaults to what...
just use something other than outlook and you can care less about it) is
possibly there for advertising effect more than anything else :(

Hey, bob's company stopped this virus with $PRODUCT_12, why aren't we
using that product $VP_O_IT ??