With cybercriminals becoming more active — and continually launching new, more sophisticated malicious software — it’s essential that the antivirus solution you choose is regularly updated by the antivirus vendor. Without regular, frequent antivirus updates, your selected antivirus solution is unlikely to be able to react rapidly when new malware is released.

More malware... means more antivirus updates

A few years ago — with many malicious programs being written by students and youngsters that often didn’t try too hard to damage users’ computers, steal money or even release the malware that they developed — it wasn’t necessary to protect against all new computer viruses and Trojan viruses. Instead, protection was only required for the relatively few items of malware that were actually released. Furthermore, many of these malicious programs didn’t represent a severe risk.

Today, this is simply not the case:

• Kaspersky Lab’s research shows that more than 75% of malicious software is created by cybercriminals that aim to infect large numbers of computers.
• Hundreds of new computer viruses and Trojan viruses are being developed every day.
• Unfortunately, there are many cases whereby some antivirus vendors fail to deliver protection updates until after a significant number of users’ computers have become infected.

Malware infections spread quickly

All of this increased cybercriminal activity means there’s an increased likelihood of falling victim to a cyber threat:

• Your computer could be infected by criminal malware — as result of browsing the Internet.
• Computer worms can rapidly spread to infect millions of computers.
• Because the Internet is such a fast-moving environment, your antivirus provider must release almost instant updates to address all newly detected computer viruses and Trojan viruses.