An entirely new approach to providing home computers with anti-virus protection is being developed by security firm Symantec.

The company said that a new approach was needed to replace the existing 'fingerprinting' method employed by the majority of security software providers.

"Recent Symantec studies show that the volume of malware released now outpaces good software, potentially representing up to 65 per cent of all unique software apps," said Carey Nachenberg of Symantec.

The sheer volume of rogue software applications on the web means that Symantec constantly has to update the products installed on home PCs in order to make sure they are protected.

"While we could just ratchet up the model and ship 20, 30, or 50 thousand fingerprints per day to customers, before long you'll have no RAM left to run legitimate software. The model is close to being broken," Nachenberg said.

However, the company has not yet released any information about what its new approach involves.

"The results are extremely promising: in many use cases it appears to be significantly better than traditional fingerprint-based antivirus software. So good that the project's lead engineer is afraid to publish the initial results, even internally, given the stir they might make," said Nachenberg.

Read more details about Symantec's new anti-virus approach.

www.symantec.com

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