This is according to Graham Ahearne, Europe, Middle East and Africa technical product manager at Symantec, one of the largest security software companies in the world.
Mr Ahearne explained that the consistent updating of anti-virus software has become a more important issue in recent times.
"It's not unusual for many security vendors to add in excess of 20,000 new signatures to their anti-virus definitions every day," he remarked.
"What that means is that even if your definitions as a user are out of date by a day or even a couple of hours, there is a lot of malware that'll appear on the internet that you're potentially open to attack from."
The reactive nature of traditional anti-virus is becoming less and less exclusively capable of protecting machines, he explained.
Symantec provides protection solutions for individuals and organisations. The firm has over 18,500 employees in more than 50 countries.
Posted by Simon Jones
