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
#2This article is terrible...
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#3Wait until an employee gets some malware and some data gets leaked or lost. Then they'll be running back.
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#4I definitely agree that we need more than anti-virus these days - but I still think anti-virus has a part to play in a multi-layered approach to security.
But in any case the content of the article is rather less sensational that the headline. It seems like Netflix is 'dumping' anti-virus for... well, another anti-virus tool! It's just that SentinelOne is not signature based, and relies on dynamically detecting dubious activities by processes (which some existing anti-virus tools already do, if to a lesser degree).
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#5Photo caption says: "Netflix is quitting anti-virus. Will its millions of users benefit?"
Wat?
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#6So, Netflix is ditching anti-virus in favor of a software that was certified as doing what any other anti-virus can do.
How is that "ditching anti-virus", then? Wouldn't a better title be "Netflix is switching anti-virus providers"?
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#7I definitely agree that we need more than anti-virus these days - but I still think anti-virus has a part to play in a multi-layered approach to security. But in any case the content of the article is rather less sensational that the headline. It seems like Netflix is 'dumping' anti-virus for... well, another anti-virus tool! It's just that SentinelOne is not signature based, and relies on dynamically detecting dubio…
I'd like to know more about what it's doing and how it works. I can imagine a couple scenarios:
1) It might have a "baseline" time during which it allows and records everything, and then locks down anything outside of that (like the old ZoneAlarm did for firewalls).
2) Or it might only lock down certain APIs? File and registry and network access? Not sure where you'd stop with that. What about when it emails everyone in Outlook?
Unless I'm completely off base.
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#8A 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 file signatures is not effective against 0-day attacks.
What's newsworthy is that a vendor was able to convince important people (e.g. AV-TEST Institute) that algorithms scanning for anomalies is equivalent to, or stronger than, traditional disk-scanning. However, it doesn't look like they've convinced the credit-card industry yet. They're the ones who determine PCI DSS compliance. However, PCI DSS may not apply to Netflix.
Interpreting the story as an ongoing progression of anti-virus technology, it means the industry won't "die" at all. They're just retooling themselves with more algorithmic approaches. Maybe Symantec will add algorithms and also be included in the changing industry of fighting viruses.
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#9In general anti-virus is more useful for less educated users. For example, I'd never escalate (sudo, UAC, etc.) a process that I wouldn't expect to need the escalation. This severely limits the control a virus can take (stopping most in their tracks). The only people who really need AV are the type of idiots who run as root, or turn off UAC.
The real concern are advanced worms. Most of these would likely infect a machine regardless of the presence of an AV, either because they are zero-day or because a machine does not have security patches installed. AVs, typically, would struggle to catch an e.g. malicious BIOS flash resulting from an escalation vulnerability.
In the face of security patching, AVs are largely obsolete, irrespective of their detection rates: not 'completely' because human error does exist (which is why I still run one).
Re: Netflix Is Dumping Anti-Virus, Presages Death of an Industry
#10This article is terrible...
OTOH, excellent work by SentinalOne's marketing department.
Probably cost them no more than a decent lunch while they dictated it to the hack who's name is in the byline.