Symantec Corp. invented commercial antivirus software to protect computers from hackers a quarter-century ago. Now the company says such tactics are doomed to failure.

Antivirus “is dead,” says Brian Dye, Symantec’s senior vice president for information security. “We don’t think of antivirus as a moneymaker in any way.”

The basic antivirus mechanism is too limited to keep up with both the sheer number of worms and viruses and the evolution of more sophisticated means of attack.

Symantec pioneered computer security with its antivirus software in the late 1980s. The technology keeps hackers out by checking against a list of malicious code spotted on computers. Think of it as an immune system for machines.

But hackers increasingly use novel bugs. Mr. Dye estimates antivirus now catches just 45% of cyberattacks.

That last bit is eye-opening. Just 45%? That’s a lot of malware slipping over, no, flowing over the gates.

You might think that Symantec was throwing in the towel. But no, they’ve got a new strategy. Interesting read.