If one anti-malware software is good, does that make two better?

This article discusses the complications that arise when two different anti-malware programs are installed on the same system, leading to conflicts and potential system failures. It uses an analogy of security companies to illustrate the issues of software detours and interactions.

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A colleague on the enterprise support team was investigating a complex failure from a customer, and after much analysis, it appeared that the problem was that the system had two different anti-malware programs installed. Let’s call then Contoso and Fabrikam. Fabrikam called a function that Contoso had detoured. Contoso’s detour thought this was suspicious, so it tried to quarantine the Fabrikam process. Unfortunately, Fabrikam had also detoured a function that Contoso was using. The result was mass confusion as the Contoso ended up calling into something that it was trying to quarantine.

Installing two anti-malware programs on the same system is like hiring two different security companies to patrol your building. If they don’t know about each other, each is going to think the other one…

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