This is disturbing . . .

First, because antivirus programs are playing "catchup" against malware and vulnerabilities, they always seem to be a little behind.. And second, because "vulnerabilities" within the operating system are frequently not addressable by antivirus programs, it takes the user of the computer AND Microsoft to correctly patch the machine before the malware can be effectively blocked.

It brings to mind the serious problems my government employer had, years ago, with the Blaster worm.. Once Microsoft correctly patched the "hole" AND each department patched their computers, the worm became a non-issue. At the time, I was the IT person for our department, I stayed ahead of the game, and I had our computers patched BEFORE the Blaster worm was released. As a result, our department ran smoothly while others had temporary stoppage till their computers could be fixed.

Hope this helps.

Grif

I suppose what that says is......
If you don't keep your machine patched don't count on your anti-products to keep your "chestnuts out of the fire"

Of the thirteen, two of the industry-leading a/v solutions also failed to protect themselves from being completely disabled in the NSS test.

--CA (Computer Associates)
--Microsoft Security Essentials

Apparently no self-protection module for either program is in place/or is built well enough, to prevent a simple "kill" command issued by rogue exploit malware, from turning them off completely. This, of course, means additional malware can be downloaded without detection by protective mechanisms. An user would be completely unprotected in this scenario.

If an a/v cannot resist attack, then this is a complete failure to perform as expected by an user.