Do you think computer viruses are created by anti-virus companies like Norton and McAfee?

Question

Created so they can make money off selling their anti-virus software?

Answer 1

maybe. but i think a reason that they might do that is to protect against threats that might be created later by someone else. probably not to distribute to other computers though. maybe for testing though.

Answer 2

Nope they are just people doing a job, and really could care less about it. Besides there are plenty of people out there that want to create viruses, these companies don't have to dum up extra viruses.

Besides a large part of these "viruses" are just bull.
An anti-virus program for the most part is just a program that looks for patterns in files and certain behaviors in programs. The problem is that as you build up a list of more and more patterns you are bound to hit things that aren't really viruses, but the program says they are because it matches a pattern.

At work where we have 5000 people where their are plenty of people to open attachments like "I love you" and download all kinds of stuff from untrusted places you have to have a virus scanning, but it certainly causes problems for regular good programs. We have had to go to the vender to get them to fix their patterns because they where deleting source code as it was checked into our system. I have had the virus program say I have a virus in a text file. Well a source is a text file, and text files can not be run in any manner so there is no way it is a virus! I have also had anti-virus programs say that I have a virus in a program that I had just compiled (made into a program) and there is no way that is true.

At home I trust my judgement and my wife's and backup everything all the time, so I don't run an anti-virus program and I have NEVER had a virus, and I have been using computers before their where "PCs".

This pattern matching is why you get people that say I had X anti-virus program, everything was running fine, but then I tried Y anti-virus program and it found 200 viruses. You might have seen the same if you were switching from Y to X, it is just a different set of patterns.

Another side note, Apple/Linux/Unix machine are probably just about the same in how secure they are. As a matter of fact the person administrating the computer has more impact on how secure it is. The main reason these other OS don't have as many viruses is because if you are person that wants to write a program to mess people up and 95% of the people use Microsoft, why would you waste your time on the 5%? It will take just about the same amount of effort to attack the Apple computer, but you won't get as much of an impact.

Answer 3

2

Answer 4

No it is not but although some anti virus program does create virus. Like panda anti virus to say a few. Most viruses are actually created by the visiting of porn sites or downloading certain games. It also gets transfered to your computer when you visit a website many cookies are saved onto your computer and they might create a virus. Try downloading McAfee site advisor. It will tell you which website is safe, might contain virus and does contain viruses.

Answer 5

For your question, YES! Those people who make Anti Virus protection are the same people who create viruses. But McAfee and Norton are known to be the BEST security defense today.... I used to have AVG and thought I was infected free, but then one day I decided to try McAfee and I found over 200 viruses that AVG did not detect.

But for your question, though, which is a good question, YES!

Answer 6

No. Would make thier company belly up. Besides, there are way too many idiots out there in cyber space wanting to prove how bad they are by writing a virus. With idiots like that, they keep the wallets of the anti-virus business very well busy and probably fat with profit.

Answer 7

No, I think there are enough a**holes out there providing plenty of viruses that they wouldn't have to do much. It's always going to be a one-ups-manship between virus makers and anti-virus makers but I don't think The anti-virus guys need to make up viruses.

Answer 8

Personally i do not think so.

If people stopped making viruses then they might have to... but for now i think were safe in saying people in poland and sweden are doing all the virus making :P :P

Answer 9

No, besides - I don't use either of those companies. For free antivirus I recommend Avast (no, not AVG) although I pay a small fee to use NOD32, recommended to me by several technical people.

Answer 10

Definitely. And Government is out to get me, my child and my family.

How did you become so brilliant. It must be the soybean paste. By the way, that is also a mind-changing protein inserted by some companyout of Peoria.