Symantec says "65% of programs in existence are viruses"

Carrie Natchenberg, a security researcher at Symantec Corporation, says that "About 65% of the programs in the world are viruses" on HP.

If more than half of the world's programs become viruses, they will seek help from anti-virus software, but that antivirus software has come to its limit. It is quite scary that more than half of the programs are infected by the virus, but let's see what it is.

Details are from the following.
Losing Touch with Fingerprinting - Emerging - STN Peer-to-Peer Discussion Forums

"65% of programs in the world are viruses", Symantec: ITpro

According to Mr. Carrie, most of antivirus software currently in use uses the "blacklist method", but since the number of new viruses has become so large in recent years, it can not be handled with the blacklist method It is said that there is. It seems that 65% of all programs in the world are viruses. Since a huge number of viruses come day by day, it seems that the number of virus analysis has increased from several days to several weeks.

Also, regarding viruses that attack only specific users, it seems there are cases where countermeasure software makers can not obtain samples.

Therefore, by analyzing conventional known viruses and extracting features, by checking the files to be examined against the collected definition files, in the "blacklist method" where viruses were checked, there is no specimen and the definition to collate There seems to be a situation in which there is no file and it is possible that the virus detection can not be done.

Mr. Carrie said it is dangerous to rely too heavily on the blacklist method, and Symantec is currently studying a new method that replaces the blacklist method. I hope that the new method will be completed as soon as possible from the current state that more than half of the programs are viruses.