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RE: How to Keep Your Computer Safe!

in #security8 years ago (edited)

The general consensus these days is actually that if you're using Windows, you should stick with Windows Defender as third party antivirus programs use some weird tricks to hook in to the OS's system calls which actually introduce a bunch of different attack vectors.

This Twitter thread between some AV guy and Google's head of desktop security is pretty enlightening:

Essentially the AV industry grew out of Microsoft not taking the whole issue very seriously, which is no longer the case and they respond incredibly quickly to responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities (for context here, Tavis Ormandy is from Google Project Zero and is like the grim reaper of 0-days):

tl;dr: be careful - a lot of AV is badly written and can cause more harm than good

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taviso Tavis Ormandy tweeted @ 09 May 2017 - 01:14 UTC

Still blown away at how quickly @msftsecurity responded to protect users, can't give enough kudos. Amazing.

justinschuh Justin Schuh 😈 tweeted @ 26 Nov 2016 - 12:37 UTC

@VessOnSecurity @codelancer @taviso You misunderstand your own ignorance. AV is my single biggest impediment to shipping a secure browser.

Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.

Wow this bot is actually really handy!