Changes in the way attacks are being launched against traditional anti-virus applications necessitated changes in the way anti-virus developers deliver their services. The days of the independent hacker are gone. Organized crime employs developers to counter and even attack Anti-Virus companies’ hosted infrastructures directly. This exposure to aggressive malicious opposition has caused the Anti-Virus industry to innovate and adapt to the new threats in a more socially competitive manner.
The $10 Billion Dollar+ Annually Anti-Virus / Anti-Malware Industries have a publicity problem that centers on the term “cloud.” When compounded with the word ‘computing’ and further associated with the industry by the description of antivirus programs; their performance credibility becomes suspect through no fault of their own.
There is a prerequisite need to define that expression in terms of the real collaborative and beneficial corroborative efforts involve in protecting your PC or cell phone from malicious predators. For the common consumer, the individual, or the business person the terms ‘Cloud’ or ‘Virtual’ will not mean significant performance improvement as suggested by the marketing hype of the major Internet and cellular phone cloud service providers.
Many, if not most individual public communications service corporations allow various hardware devices to participate in servicing various aspects of your consumer experience. The simplest term used to describe that experience is to call it the front end. Industry gurus designated the tools that consumers use to initiate and receive communications as endpoints. Endpoints, like consumers, are unique because even though the numbers of manufacturers are limited, the frontend configurations are customized to the consumer’s individual preferences.
Logically, a frontend must have a backend to be complete. The Anti-Virus vendors, governments, and private businesses provide backends and the virtual or cloud computing part is the middle that connects the two ends. In the cloud, vendors share a workload virtually divided into various tasks which are assigned to the nearest least busy available participant. Virtuosity, in this case, means the demonstrated ability and skill to get the job done on demand. In the cloud community Anti-Virus vendors are the members who provide the intelligence to combat malicious software known as malware.