While making online transaction, many people make sure that whether they are having antivirus software in their system. Using antivirus software is all what we can do to secure ourselves from online attacks, however new study reveals that antivirus softwares can make online transaction less secure.
Antivirus Softwares Can Make Online Transactions Less Secure, according to study
The researchers analysed 14 popular softwares while conducting study. The antivirus softwares claim that they make computers secure by protecting data, eliminating viruses and defending users from malicious content on the web.
However with the passage of time, researchers realized that instead of securing users, these softwares are actually harming users.
“Out of the products we analysed, we found that all of them lower the level of security normally provided by current browsers, and often bring serious security vulnerabilities,” said one of the researchers Xavier de Carne de Carnavalet from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
“While a couple of fishy ad-related products were known to behave badly in the same set-up, it’s stunning to observe that products intended to bring security and safety to users can fail as badly,” Xavier said in an official statement.
We have seen how antivirus programs proceed as gatekeepers, filtering dangerous or malicious content by analysing secure web pages before they are presented to the browsers.
Browsers are supposed to check the certificate sent by the website and it has to verify that whether it has been provided by a genuine organisation, called a Certification Authority (CA).
The study stated that security products can make the system “think” that they are themselves completely granted Certification Authority (CA) which ultimately lets them to dupe the browser into trusting any certificate provided by the products.
Besides providing vital suggestions for daily computer users, the research also has the same suggestion for the companies making the software products themselves.
