For years, antivirus software has been one of the first lines of defence against cybercrime. Installing antivirus on every computer became standard practice, and for a long time it was enough to stop many of the threats businesses faced.
The problem is that cybercriminals have changed tactics.
Today’s attacks rarely begin with someone downloading an obvious virus or opening a suspicious attachment. Criminals are far more likely to compromise a Microsoft 365 account, steal login credentials through a convincing phishing email, exploit a weak password, or persuade an employee to approve what appears to be a legitimate request. And now, hackers are utilising artificial intelligence to automate these techniques, making cyberattacks faster, more convincing and much harder to detect.
In many cases, a traditional virus isn’t used at all.
That presents a challenge because antivirus software was designed to detect malicious files. When an attacker logs in using valid credentials or uses trusted software to move around a network, an antivirus is unlikely to detect anything unusual. From the computer’s perspective, everything appears legitimate.
This is one of the reasons many organisations are surprised to learn that they have been compromised. The attack wasn’t prevented because it didn’t appear to be a traditional attack.
Modern attacks focus on people, not computers
Most successful cyberattacks now target human behaviour rather than technical vulnerabilities.
An employee receives what appears to be an invoice from a supplier.
A finance manager receives an email that looks as though it came from the Managing Director asking for an urgent payment.
A member of staff approves a Microsoft 365 login request because they assume it belongs to a colleague.
None of these situations involve malware in the traditional sense. Instead, they rely on trust, familiarity and timing.
Businesses often invest heavily in protecting their computers while overlooking the identities that give people access to their systems. Once an attacker has access to an account, they can often move through the business unnoticed unless active monitoring for unusual behaviour is in place.
The question has changed
For many years, organisations asked a simple question:
‘Do we have antivirus?’
Today, a better question is:
‘How quickly would we know if someone had gained access to our business?’
Those two questions are very different.
The first assumes that preventing malware is the objective.
The second recognises that modern cybersecurity is just as much about visibility, detection and response as it is about prevention.
While no organisation can guarantee that every attack will be stopped, the businesses that recover most successfully are the ones that detect suspicious activity early and respond before significant damage occurs.
Modern protection works differently
Rather than relying on a single product, effective cybersecurity now combines several layers of protection.
- Strong identity protection reduces the risk of compromised accounts.
- Application controls help prevent the running of unauthorised software.
- Continuous monitoring searches for user behaviour that deviates from normal patterns.
- Security specialists investigate and block suspicious activity before it can develop into a larger incident.
Together, these measures (or layers) create a much stronger security posture than antivirus software alone could ever provide.
Ask yourself these three questions
If you’re responsible for technology in your business, consider the following:
- Would you know if someone logged into your Microsoft 365 account from another country?
- Can employees install any software they like on company devices?
- If suspicious activity happened at 2am on Saturday morning, who would know about it?
Many businesses discover they don’t have clear answers to these questions. That’s not unusual. Cybersecurity has changed so much over the past few years, that many organisations are still relying on protection that was designed for a different type of threat.
Looking beyond antivirus
Antivirus still has an important place in every security strategy. Removing it would be like taking the locks off your office doors just because you have an alarm system.
The difference is that locks alone are no longer enough.
Modern businesses need to know who is accessing their systems, what they’re doing, and whether that activity represents a genuine threat. Visibility, rapid detection and a coordinated response have become just as important as preventing malicious software from running in the first place.
Businesses that understand this shift are moving away from thinking about individual security products towards building layers that ensure their entire environment is protected, monitored, and continuously improved.