>>Not quite right. There are common patterns that lots of malware use. Anti-virus can watch for those patterns. Things like hooking into various places in the kernel is one of those patterns.
Agreed... but still we pay to upgrade our virus scanners and install Windows security patches. Our problem is that as each virus variant is defeated, the authors come up with new exploits to thwart detection. Always we will fight this battle unless we live in a walled garden.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
