Conspiracy theory – Anti-Virus companies are the ones releasing viruses

I bet at some point, you thought to yourself, “The same companies that provide anti-virus programs are also the people who write viruses.”

The logic behind that is, if Symantec releases viruses, then people need anti-virus software, right?

If I had a quarter for every time I had heard that, I would easily have enough for a steak dinner!

I don’t believe that to be true, any more than the companies that sell police radar guns, also sell radar detectors.  No wait, that was true, but I digress. As much as a conspiracy theorist as I am, I don’t believe that it is in the best interest of an anti-malware company to release malicious software. There’s enough people out there doing that for free already that the likes of a Trend Micro would not need to risk everything on that kind of activity.

However, with that being said, an interesting tidbit in the news is that John McAfee, the guy who McAfee anti-virus security is named after, has apparently admitted that he intentionally infected notebook computers which were provided to law enforcement and government officials. John McAfee has nothing to do with the current McAfee company, but these admissions sure have caused blogs and web forums world-wide to light up with “I told you so!” type comments.

Read the whole story over on nakedsecurity.

One thing is for sure – if anyone gives me a free notebook computer, I’m going to immediately wipe it and reload the operating system!

 

 

 

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