Anti-virus leader Symantec sent shockwaves through the beauty retail community with the statement that anti-virus software is dead, leaving beauty store owners wondering, "Now what?"
Symantec dropped the bombshell to make a point. These days a computer armed with a good firewall and some topflight anti-virus software is simply no match against a sophisticated, determined hacker. The reason: The number of new viruses unleashed on the public every day can be as many as 200,000, according to Kapersky Lab, a Woburn, Massachusetts-based computer security firm. It's a daunting number to defend against for even the most disciplined anti-virus software maker. Moreover, many hackers have gotten very good at disguising the code in already identified viruses. Essentially, these hackers have the same copy of Norton, McAfee and other top anti-virus applications that millions of others do. And, apparently, they have nothing better to do all day than to encrypt code on known viruses to the point that those viruses become unrecognizable to Norton AntiVirus software and others.
Continue reading this story in Beauty Store Business'June digital edition.
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