THE speed with which US law enforcers last week tracked down Jeffrey Lee Parson, one of the alleged culprits behind the destructive computer virus MSBlaster, was heralded as a great victory in the battle against computer crime. But an investigation into antivirus software shows that there is no cause for celebration. Antivirus specialists are fighting a losing battle against malicious code like viruses and worms, it concludes.
The research, undertaken in the UK at Hewlett-Packard’s labs in Bristol, is the first to evaluate the effectiveness of antiviral software. It shows that the way we fight viruses is fundamentally flawed, because…
