Windows 8 to have built-in anti-virus – there’s good and bad news

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Microsoft will ship Windows 8 with built-in anti-virus software.

That’s the big news that is no doubt being discussed furtively at the watercoolers of computer security companies around the world today.

What will it mean to them? A quick glance at Twitter reveals that some people already have pretty good ideas about how the news might have been received..

But seriously, is this good news for the existing anti-virus companies and – more importantly – consumers?

Microsoft has been making a free anti-virus software available for a couple of years, in the form of Microsoft Security Essentials. But you had to download it from the internet – it wasn’t bundled with Windows itself.

Microsoft has been bundling a program called Windows Defender with Windows 7, Windows XP and Vista, but it doesn’t really compare to a proper anti-virus product.

With Windows 8, it sounds as if Windows Defender will be beefed up to incorporate…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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