You Don't Have To Pay To Be Infected

As a general IT consumer having various expensive electronics, you decide to keep them safe from malware and viruses. So, just like everyone else, you decide to look up "the best antivirus" to pay for and be safe. The '90s are gone and you could just be wasting or in simple terms, unnecessarily spending for the "protection".

This does not mean there is no need to be worried about the infected and malicious software. They are plenty. For example, September 18, the facts about hackers having piggybacked malware onto one of the widely used tools, that was designed to optimize system performance on Windows PCs and Android mobile device known as CCleaner — According to Piriform, around 2.27 million users might have installed the infected version of the CCleaner software, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. The next thing you know, everybody is rushing out to buy a good (expensive) antivirus.

There are various antivirus services that offer genuine tools that can defend your computer, you probably just could get sufficient protection for free. For the Windows machines, Microsoft provides you with Windows Defender. Decent, yet if you need better protection, Immunet which uses cloud computing and provides community-based security is one of the good options to look into.

"Immunet requires only 10mb of hard disk space - that is 35 times less than traditional antivirus solutions and doesn't weigh down your PC," as explained on their website.

Macs, too, have the built-in protection against malware known as "Gatekeeper" which sets limits on what can and can not be downloaded. The question that is often raised is, do Mac users need an antivirus? There basically is no genuine reason why the Mac OS may or cannot be targeted by cybercriminals. This is not to scare the users since there is no threat of significant scale. 

So why does everyone pay for these kinds of things? It can be taken as a mindset that people have developed which of course, benefits the software manufacturers. Others may simply find it pre-installed on their computer and just decide to continue using it. 

Such lack of clarity regarding antivirus software is what could be becoming a security risk itself today. People tend to end up downloading crappy software which may leave their systems open for attacks. 

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Pictures: Google, Microsoft, NBC News