Technology Review has written a great article today about the lack of power that lays in current Anti Virus and Anti Spyware Products, and their defence against powerful viruses that have recently come to light in the media, such as Flame and StuxNet. Even the most advanced firewalls and defence systems put in place are not powerful enough to keep the attacks at bay and stop them from causing damage to computer networks that are relied on to power large areas and communities, both offline and online.

Anti Virus software needs to become more powerful and have more capabilities to withstand attacks from advanced computer viruses. Software that is most commonly installed on systems at the moment, such as the likes or Norton and McAfee, are capable of keeping minor threats at bay, such as attempts to hijack a browser and change the victims homepage, but if Flame was to come along, Norton and McAfee wouldn’t know on earth to do and would have to sit back and let the virus do as much damage as it pleases on that computer system,, before travelling along the network cables and affecting any other computers on that network. This is how viruses work, and this is why even when systems that have a good structure in place, such as Sophos Business packages for example, they can still become infected with a powerful virus if it comes in from another angle, such as from an internal part of the network. This could have happened from a computer also connected to the network only having the basic AVG Free software installed for example.

Some personal favourites that we at Suck My Trend have seen work well, include Spyware Doctor, and cleaning tools such as CCleaner. We have found that regular use of these can keep the viruses at bay and keep your computer fast at the same time, but these great tools also run the risk of suffering with this new wave of advanced viruses coming our way.

All software packages will need to be upgraded, and the approach that is being taken will need to be changed to match the complexity and intellectual skills of the virus and the person, or team that created it.

Flame has been named all over the world as the “most complex malware ever found”

The US government has been named as the people behind the StuxNet program. Due to the age of the code, meaning that they were made around the same time, also suggests that Barack Obama was not behind it, as he was not in office at the time, George Bush was. However, it has been noted on various sources around the web that Obama was quickly made aware of the system in place to attack Iran’s defence systems and took on board the responsibilities, although of course we have no proof of this and are only taking in what various other websites that are well known have said.