Are antivirus products just making money by giving people a “feeling” of security rather than true security?
Schneier: Antivirus is easy. Antivirus products actually work. They have for years. A lot of the software on this show floor is just snake oil, but antivirus does work. You should have an antivirus program. You should have it updated regularly. It doesn’t make you secure, but it gets that bottom layer of the trivial stuff. That’s why. It’s not sufficient but it’s certainly necessary. People are tricked into downloading malicious software through social engineering. Have people become too conditioned — mainly through watching television — to also believe whatever appears on their monitor? Yes, but it’s not television. People know the Internet is not television. People believe what they see on the Net not because of television but because of the trappings of reality. So when you got to BT.com, you see the BT logo, the BT font, the PR material, and you’ll think, yeah, it’s BT, like when you go to your bank, you see the logo, the tellers. That’s real, that’s expensive stuff. On the Web,
