Why you still need antivirus

In April this year, Microsoft published a blog in which it asked a simple question: Do users really need third-party antivirus software or is Defender enough? The post said Microsoft’s built-in antivirus covers everyday risk, provided you’ve done all the necessary things, like installing updates, watching what you download, etc. And while they did say that it ultimately depends on what you get up to as a PC user, it was an inflammatory statement for the vendors who have been selling protection since the ‘90s.

The company removed the post in June after criticism from the cyber industry players, without any explanation. This isn’t to say Defender antivirus isn’t a great solution. It has to be – it’s built directly into Windows, which means it has nearly 1.6bn devices to keep safe. But Microsoft posed what many security analysts have been asking for years, which is whether a standalone antivirus is still necessary when so many of today’s attacks no longer involve what antivirus was built to catch in the first place: malware.