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Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

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Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#51

Post by dr_zoidberg »

jasode wrote: post #8

A more nuanced title would be: " To continue its fight against new viruses, Netflix is dumping classical disk-scanning-fingerprints software for newer technologies such as statistical analysis of anomalies. " Netflix and whoever they hire (e.g. SentinelOne) is still fighting viruses . They're just doing it using more sophisticated algorithms instead of fingerprints. Traditional anti-virus software trying to match fil…

I work in digital forensics, and running Volatility against the memory (either online or against a memory dump), helps give a far deeper insight and way higher probability at finding viruses than standard "antivirus" software. You can even find Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and "unidentified" viruses, because what you look for are the mechanisms by which a virus resides in memory: hidden processes, hooks to system calls, spurious DLLs, etc.

Ever since I learned about memory analysis, I have considered almost every antivirus useless. I do have the Windows Defender antivirus active, but if I have a real doubt, I turn to memory analysis just to be sure (still clean luckily!).

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#52

Post by jonstokes »

jonstokes wrote: post #48
TFoxBrewster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a timeline: journalist speaks to Netflix, Netflix says it's ditching anti-virus, journalist gets further comment, reports. Don't be mad Jon. It'll all be OK.

I wasn't actually mad until you called yourself a "journalist" just now. That's over the line :p

OK, I'm sorry. The above was mean. You have hard, thankless job. I know, I used to do it. Good luck out there.

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#53

Post by t2015_08_25 »

ams6110 wrote: post #25
upofadown wrote: post #24

So who cares what Netflix does for anti-virus? Their business is about running servers with almost read only data that can't normally propagate a virus infection.

This is about what they're using on staff desktops, not their video-delivery systems.

Thank you. I was going mad trying to comprehend what the phrase "dumping anti-virus" means.

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#54

Post by thaumaturgy »

TFoxBrewster wrote: post #49
thaumaturgy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say what prompted you to contact Netflix then? The article really reads like a love letter to SentinelOne, and includes some pretty odd bits that work well with their marketing for their endpoint product, like describing it as not an anti-virus product. And what does "post-AV anti-malware" mean?

Sure. So it turns out Netflix is this really big company, and I met one of their security architects at Black Hat. I thought, hey, I wonder if they're up to anything interesting at Netflix. I'll give them a call. A love letter? You send love letters like this to people? Are you like a post-modern Keats?

OK, so then you talked to someone at Netflix, and they said, what, "umm... well, we just replaced our anti-virus product with this other thing called SentinelOne that isn't really an anti-virus product", and then you looked at their site and called them and decided they totally weren't an anti-virus product? And that the real story here was that this was the death knell for anti-virus, or the beginning of "post-AV anti-malware", or something?

Clearly you have technical chops. But the most technical part of your article, concerning whatever technology somehow separates this product from the rest of the industry (let alone makes it "not anti-virus"), is this single line:

"Its end-point security doesn’t rely on signatures, it monitors every process on a device to check for irregularities and does not perform on-system scans or require massive updates like anti-virus..."

If SentinelOne is doing something truly new, something that merits coverage from tech journalists, it would be nice to read about it.

And btw, you said earlier, "When I contacted SentinelOne after the interview they said they couldn't even go on the record about the Netflix contract", which is an odd thing for them to have told you, since they have a Netflix logo and an official statement from them under the testimonials section of http://www.sentinelone.com/?show_epp=true -- wait a minute, in fact the quote from your article is a word-for-word match for the testimonial on SentinelOne's site: "The direction we decided to go was with a company called SentinelOne, who we’ve been working with for year and a half. They were a true replacement for end-point protection".

Your contact at Netflix must've been reading from Rob Fry's script...

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#55

Post by OJFord »

TFoxBrewster wrote: post #49
thaumaturgy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say what prompted you to contact Netflix then? The article really reads like a love letter to SentinelOne, and includes some pretty odd bits that work well with their marketing for their endpoint product, like describing it as not an anti-virus product. And what does "post-AV anti-malware" mean?

Sure. So it turns out Netflix is this really big company, and I met one of their security architects at Black Hat. I thought, hey, I wonder if they're up to anything interesting at Netflix. I'll give them a call. A love letter? You send love letters like this to people? Are you like a post-modern Keats?

I disagree with the statement that it reads like a love letter, but I very much agree that you should clarify what's meant by "the post-AV anti-malware game"..

It comes across as a wannabe-buzzword, and something of a contradiction. Further, I can't find any reference elsewhere.

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#56

Post by OJFord »

criddell wrote: post #46
TFoxBrewster wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a timeline: journalist speaks to Netflix, Netflix says it's ditching anti-virus, journalist gets further comment, reports. Don't be mad Jon. It'll all be OK.

Why did the journalist speak to Netflix in the first place?

[Comment above](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10135598) says journalist met Netflix guy at Black Hat.

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#57

Post by OJFord »

pstadler wrote: post #5

Photo caption says: "Netflix is quitting anti-virus. Will its millions of users benefit?" Wat?

Ha! That is totally nonsensical.

I didn't agree at first, but this smells more and more like PR - there seems to be very little understanding of the news in the article.

What is "the post-AV anti-malware game", and why on Earth would Netflix's end-users benefit from the company's staff computers entering said game?!

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#58

Post by TFoxBrewster »

TFoxBrewster wrote: post #49
thaumaturgy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say what prompted you to contact Netflix then? The article really reads like a love letter to SentinelOne, and includes some pretty odd bits that work well with their marketing for their endpoint product, like describing it as not an anti-virus product. And what does "post-AV anti-malware" mean?

Sure. So it turns out Netflix is this really big company, and I met one of their security architects at Black Hat. I thought, hey, I wonder if they're up to anything interesting at Netflix. I'll give them a call. A love letter? You send love letters like this to people? Are you like a post-modern Keats?

For those below...

Another timeline: Reporter writes story, company sees story, takes it and uses it for marketing. This is a common occurrence across teh interwebz.

We could get into the nitty-gritty of what anti-virus is and isn't, but frankly I don't think we'll agree. Because what else is HN for other than to argue points ad infinitum until we all realize we've wasted a significant portion of our lives that should have been spent to more altruistic, worthwhile ends?

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#59

Post by TFoxBrewster »

OJFord wrote: post #55
TFoxBrewster wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So it turns out Netflix is this really big company, and I met one of their security architects at Black Hat. I thought, hey, I wonder if they're up to anything interesting at Netflix. I'll give them a call. A love letter? You send love letters like this to people? Are you like a post-modern Keats?

I disagree with the statement that it reads like a love letter, but I very much agree that you should clarify what's meant by "the post-AV anti-malware game".. It comes across as a wannabe-buzzword, and something of a contradiction. Further, I can't find any reference elsewhere.

Oh and post-AV anti-malware game: AV sucks and doesn't really do much to protect you against decent malware. Post-AV anti-malware systems do better.

Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry

#60

Post by criddell »

OJFord wrote: post #56
criddell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did the journalist speak to Netflix in the first place?

[Comment above]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10135598 ) says journalist met Netflix guy at Black Hat.

Ok, fair enough. If the writer insists this is a legitimate piece, I'll believe him.

You have to admit though, this certainly reads like a native content article. In the current business climate, you can't fault people for assuming this was paid for.

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