Ninety-seven per cent of IT professionals think standard antivirus software will stop zero-day attacks

While only 15 per cent have rolled out network heuristics

A staggering 97 per cent of IT professionals surveyed by Computing are using standard antivirus software to stop zero-day attacks.

The research was presented during today's web seminar, entitled "Anti-virus software has had its day - how can you protect against advanced threats?"

It was also revealed that while 57 per cent have rolled out additional advanced threat detection and sandboxing solutions, as well as 32 per cent using application whitelisting techniques, only 15 per cent of respondents use truly advanced tactics, such as email filtering, network heuristics or read-only virtualisation.

Pannelist Bridget Kenyon (pictured), head of information security at University College London, expressed dismay at the results, stating:

"These respondents said antivirus software would help them, but there's no signature on zero day [attacks], so it can't help you. [The malware] is already out in the world," said Kenyon.

While Kenyon acknowledged that "within a few hours the signature is in [antivirus] systems," the fact that updating databases relies on systems being compromised in order to collect data makes standard antivirus software, in her mind, not fit for task.

"There's an argument that analysing heuristics - the patterns of the [malware's] behaviour - may protect you, but I wouldn't rest on that one either," said Kenyon.

Jason Brown, enterprise technology specialist at Intel Security, championed the notion of sandboxing - "putting multiple obstacles in the way" of malware by keeping it inside closed environments.

"It's good practice, and it's good that people are looking at sandboxing," said Brown.

But Kenyon warned of an "arms race", going on in sandboxing right now, and for users and systems administrators to remain cautious.

"A lot of viruses will check to see if they're in a sandboxing environment, and if they are, they'll pretend to be innocuous," she said.

"It's like forging your passport."