End of the road for Klingon Anti-Virus

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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@[email protected]
@gcluley

Just shy of 100,000 people downloaded Sophos’s Klingon Anti-Virus earlier this year, which offered to scan your Windows PC for viruses, spyware, adware, Tribbles and zero-day threats.

During the course of the experiment we not only found that Helsinki was the Klingon-speaking capital of the world, but also that a surprising number of people chose to keep running the Klingon-language version of our software on their computers, automatically updating against the latest threats just as our software does in English, Spanish, Japanese and other languages.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6XD2zGtvAM&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0] Klingon Anti-Virus-YMCA mashup video, also available on Vimeo.

(Enjoy this video? You can check out more on the SophosLabs YouTube channel and subscribe if you like)

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I’m afraid, however, that all good things must come to an end and we will be pulling the plug on anti-virus updates to the Klingon version of our software at the end of this month. Anyone still relying upon us for detection of Betazoid sub-ether porn diallers would be wise to switch over to an English version of the threat detection test instead.

Update: Some people have been in touch asking why we are discontinuing updates for Klingon Anti-Virus.

I’m afraid that the issue is out of our hands.

A meeting of the Klingon High Council recently expressed concern that the continued existence of Klingon Anti-Virus reflected badly on the Klingon race, as they claim to have eradicated all Qo’noS-related malware, past present and future in both this and mirror universes. And we don’t like to upset them.

Live long and prosper. Any questions, please email [email protected].


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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