Still Relying on Antivirus? Hackers Have Already Moved On
The False Comfort of Antivirus
For decades, antivirus (AV) was synonymous with “endpoint security”. If every laptop and server had AV installed, auditors checked the box and boards felt reassured. It was low cost, easy to deploy, and offered a simple metric: number of devices covered.
But this confidence has become a dangerous illusion. Attackers do not measure your defences by how many licences you own. They measure them by how fast they can bypass them. Today, ransomware and malware bypass traditional AV in 80% of cases (Ponemon Institute).
Antivirus is still necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. Treating it as the core of your defence leaves Irish organisations exposed to downtime, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage.
Why Antivirus Became a Dead Metric
Antivirus is not “bad”. It still plays a role in blocking known threats. The problem is how it has been treated:
- Auditable but outdated: Easy for compliance officers to prove AV was “in place”, even if it was not effective.
- Cheap reassurance: Low cost made it attractive when budgets were tight.
- Vendor inertia: For years, AV was sold as the endpoint solution, even as attackers evolved.
This reliance created a false sense of security. Leadership felt protected, while attackers saw an open door.
The Attacker’s Playbook Has Evolved
What worked against viruses in the 2000s no longer applies in a cloud-first, hybrid-work world. Attackers use methods that AV cannot address:
- Polymorphic and AI-driven malware: Code changes on every execution, evading signature detection.
- Credential harvesting: Stolen or reused passwords bypass AV entirely.
- Living-off-the-land techniques: Attackers use built-in tools such as PowerShell to move laterally without detection.
- Supply chain compromises: Attackers infiltrate trusted updates, bypassing device-level AV.
In short: antivirus protects against yesterday’s threats, while attackers focus on tomorrow’s.
Endpoint Security in Ireland: A Wake-Up Call
The Irish landscape makes this clear. Even organisations that believe they are “covered” are suffering major breaches:
- 87,000 accounts compromised in Q2 2025 alone (RTE).
- 58 cyberattacks per year on average (Hiscox), more than one per week.
- 10% of Irish firms report attack losses between €1m and €10m (Hiscox).
- The HSE ransomware attack in 2021 caused weeks of disruption, more than €100m in recovery costs, and lasting reputational damage.
These incidents did not happen because antivirus was missing. They happened because antivirus is no longer enough.
Compliance Pressure is Mounting
For many leaders, antivirus has been treated as a compliance checkbox. In reality, compliance is no longer about whether you have bought the tools. It is about whether you can prove outcomes.
European regulators have raised the bar:
- NIS2, live in Ireland from October 2024, demands operational resilience, incident reporting, and supply chain oversight.
- DORA, effective January 2025, enforces ICT resilience for all financial entities, including mandatory recovery testing.
Both align with NIST CSF and ENISA guidance, which stress that resilience is not a tool but an ongoing state of readiness. Passing an annual audit is not enough.
From Antivirus to Cyber Assurance: A Maturity Model
Most organisations progress through maturity stages. Each step improves visibility, but unless you reach assurance, risk remains high.
-
Antivirus Reliance
- Metric: Licence count
- Reality: Blocks known malware, but blind to phishing, zero-days, and lateral movement
- Risk: High
-
Detection Only (EDR)
- Metric: Number of alerts
- Reality: Improves visibility, but alerts pile up without response
- Risk: Still high. Forrester reports 40% of firms with EDR alone still lose money
-
Extended Detection (XDR)
- Metric: Cross-domain signals (endpoints, network, cloud)
- Reality: Broader view, but without a 24/7 SOC or governance, becomes complex alerting
- Risk: Medium
-
Managed Assurance (EMaaS)
- Metric: MTTD, MTTR, patch compliance, resilience score
- Reality: SureLogik and Bitdefender integrate AV, EDR, XDR, and SOC into a governed, accountable service
- Risk: Reduced, measurable, and continuously improved
XDR is progress, but it is not the destination. The destination is Assurance: integration and governance that transform tools into measurable resilience outcomes.
Why Cyber Assurance is the New KPI
Antivirus, EDR, and even XDR are just components. Without governance, they only generate noise.
Executives and regulators want proof. That is why cyber assurance is becoming a board-level KPI. It reframes the conversation from “Do we have the right tools?” to “Can we demonstrate resilience?”
Boards now ask:
- How quickly can we detect and contain threats?
- How fast can we recover operations?
- Can we prove resilience to regulators, customers, and investors?
Cyber Assurance answers those questions.
Beyond Defence: Assurance as Competitive Advantage
Cybersecurity is often seen as a cost centre. Forward-looking organisations view cyber assurance differently.
- Customers trust assured providers with sensitive data.
- Boards reward visibility with higher confidence in expansion.
- Regulators prefer proactive firms that can demonstrate resilience.
In a crowded market, being able to show resilience metrics — not just claim them — becomes a competitive differentiator as powerful as price or innovation.
Conclusion: Antivirus is the Baseline, Not the Benchmark
Antivirus remains part of good hygiene. But it is yesterday’s seatbelt, not today’s airbag system. If it is your only line of defence, you are already behind.
- Attackers do not care about your AV licence count.
- Regulators do not care about box-ticking.
- Boards do not care about alerts without action.
What matters now is resilience you can prove. That is the shift from antivirus to assurance.
If your defences are still built for yesterday’s IT world, it is time to rethink your strategy. Contact SureLogik today for a Cyber Readiness Assessment and see how assured resilience can become your competitive advantage.