The True Cost of Paid Security?

[MidnightCowboy]

A flaw in McAfee's security suite has allowed users computers to be hijacked and enrolled into a botnet. Saddest thing for the customer highlighted here is their own email address has now been blacklisted by McAfee as a spam agent so they can't contact them

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16627713

IMO McAfee has always been one of the poorest performers out there and yet folks still dish out their hard earned dosh to install it.

[Concerned User]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

A flaw in McAfee's security suite has allowed users computers to be hijacked and enrolled into a botnet. Saddest thing for the customer highlighted here is their own email address has now been blacklisted by McAfee as a spam agent so they can't contact them

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16627713

IMO McAfee has always been one of the poorest performers out there and yet folks still dish out their hard earned dosh to install it.

Yup...I visited one of my relatives a couple of weeks ago..He told me that he had purchased a new laptop and had paid for a one year McAfee subscription for Rs (INR) 2,100 bucks or so... (he works for the IT sector, BTW and I'm just an arts graduate who is interested in computers).......

Being the "nice" guy that I am gently told him that Microsoft had a free antivirus package which was quite good and there are also lots of freebies in the market......

His reply: He prefers "paid" stuff???

Yes, signature based solutions (all antivirus packages) will get things wrong...AVG, Avast, even MSE (I think they flagged Google Chrome as a virus recently). Norton et al. are improving, but it is too late, since:

1. MSE is really really better.
2. In built OS defenses have improved a lot (UAC, ASLR, DEP, LUA, etc...)
3. Browsers now come with a lot of defences

But of course, there is always human stupidity....

Jokes apart, speaking of McAfee.....

[J_L]

Just because they get more money, doesn't mean they perform any better.