The Bad News About Viruses...

There is no foolproof way of preventing viruses.  Computer security deals with security and compliance at a moment in time.  One moment you are secure, the next moment, something changes and that security is jeopardized.  SWhile there are many antivirus solutions available on the market, none can guarantee 100% protection because there are new viruses being created constantly.  Additionally, a network is accessed by multiple users.  Every user creates a possibility of security holes.  A security professional’s job is always finding the delicate balance between security and accessibility.  We need to ensure that a user is able to perform their job efficiently and effectively while also maintaining an acceptable level of security.  Most security tools have a difficult time protecting networks against the constantly changing landscape of security threats and malware.

An Israeli startup, Cyactive, took the knowledge that malware, being ever changing, is also almost always recycled.  It is very fast and easy to develop new malware by reusing existing malware and modifying it for a new exploit.  Developing new malware from scratch is much more difficult.  Because of this, Symantec has found that more than 90% of malware detected is a variant of a previously detected malware.  Cyactive developed a predictive engine that can predict how current malware can be modified for the future.  With this, hundreds of thousands of malware derivatives are predicted and fed into systems used to detect malware and those systems can then anticipate and prevent future attacks on networks.  Cyactive was bought by Paypal in 2015.