Dive Brief:
- Antivirus and intrusion detection tools are a waste of time for businesses, according to Darren Bilby, a senior security engineer at Google.
- Speaking at the Kiwicon conference in Wellington, New Zealand on Thursday, Bilby said, "We need to stop investing in those things we have shown do not work," according to The Register. "Antivirus does some useful things, but in reality it is more like a canary in the coal mine. It is worse than that. It's like we are standing around the dead canary saying 'Thank God it inhaled all the poisonous gas.'"
- Tools such as whitelisting, hardware security keys and dynamic access rights efforts are more effective approaches to preventing cyber invasions, Bilby said.
Dive Insight:
Organizations should employ a variety of different types of cyber defense strategies to ensure they are best protected. Even with the most diligent processes, education and defenses, malware and ransomware can still infect an enterprise.
As a last defense, regularly backing up a system can allow companies to make a full recovery in case of an incident.
Security experts are also imploring businesses to not rely solely on overlying security measures. Instead, companies should try to bake security into functionality to give them a better chance at defending against outside threats.