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There are competing claims for the innovator of the first antivirus product. Perhaps the first publicly known neutralization of a wild PC virus was performed by European Bernt Fix (also Bernd) in early 1987. Fix neutralized an infection of the Vienna virus.[7] [8] The first edition of Polish antivirus software mks_vir was released in 1987; the program was only available with a Polish interface. Autumn 1988 saw antivirus software Dr. Solomon’s Anti-Virus Toolkit released by Briton Alan Solomon. By December 1990 the market had matured to the point of nineteen separate antivirus products being on sale including Norton AntiVirus and ViruScan from McAfee.

Peter Tippett made a number of contributions to the budding field of virus detection.[citation needed] He was an emergency room doctor who also ran a computer software company. He had read an article about the Lehigh virus and questioned whether they would have similar characteristics to biological viruses that attack organisms. From an epidemiological viewpoint, he was able to determine how these viruses were affecting systems within the computer (the boot-sector was affected by the Brain virus, the .com files were affected by the Lehigh virus, and both .com and .exe files were affected by the Jerusalem virus). Tippett’s company Certus International Corp. then began to create anti-virus software programs. The company was sold in 1992 to Symantec Corp, and Tippett went to work for them, incorporating the software he had developed into Symantec’s product, Norton AntiVirus.[citation needed]

A very uncommon use of the term “antivirus” is to apply it to benign viruses that spread and combated malicious viruses. This was common on the Amiga computer platform.[citation needed]

Effectiveness

Studies in December 2007 have shown that the effectiveness of Antivirus software is much reduced from what it was a few years ago, particularly against unknown or “zero day” threats.

The German computer magazine c’t found that detection rates had dropped to a frightening 20% to 30%, compared to 40% to 50% only one year earlier. Only one product managed a creditable 68% detection rate.[9]

The problem is magnified by the changing intent of virus authors. Some years ago it was obvious when a virus infection was present. The viruses of the day, written by amateurs, exhibited destructive behavior or popped-up screen messages. Modern viruses are often written by professionals, financed by criminal organizations. It is not in the interests of these viruses to be obvious.[citation needed] Their purpose is to create bot-nets or steal information; consequently they are often well hidden. If an infected user has a less than effective antivirus product that says the computer is clean, then the virus may go undetected. Even major antivirus products have failed to detect programs containing malicious behavour.