FredW <fredw@blackholespam.net> wrote:

>Malware does not wait for you to call them "stupid" and wait for another
>24 hours to update your definitions.

I deal with malware professionally. I have hundreds of clients. Turning off
unneeded services, using a firewall, instructing your users not to download
suspicious stuff, and adhering to the Windows and Google warning notices about
suspicious websites are your best defense.

What's more, I give the only warrantee of its kind in the business: I give a
60 day warrantee that the malware won't come back after I've fixed a client's
computer. And that's in all my advertising. I've only had to eat it about 7
or 8 times in the past 5 years.

I reiterate that updating definition files frequently is a stupid idea that is
only going to bog down the Internet. It's bad enough that there are DoS
attacks going on and zombie bots running rampant attacking particular
addresses, resulting in slowdowns. To have perfectly good machines polling
and polling and polling for definitions that may not even be needed is the
ultimate in dumbness.

My latest MSSE update on this machine was 7/20 at 2:15am. That's good enough
for me, and I don't have malware issues. What's more, I've had no malware on
this computer in the 3 years I've been running it. Sure, there've been
attempts, but they're thwarted before they get anywhere. I've used Avast,
AVG, and MSSE for the most part.