It depends on the version of antivirus you are using, they can be from 0% to 65% effective. 

This means that even if you have the best antivirus available in the market, 35% of the Zero Day malware will go undetected. 

Zero-Day Viruses 

They are essentially new viruses that antivirus will not protect.

However, AntiVirus does still work well for existing and known malware and viruses which are not Zero-Day viruses. 

Now, if Antivirus is ineffective, is there a solution to combat this ineffectiveness?

As these threats are emerging quickly and continuously, there are tools to combat these threats. But, they are still lesser-known and can often be solutions that are very expensive. 

Identifying Malware

Since most AV systems work by trying to find bad files or processes, detection needs to be changed in order to be effective. This can be done by analyzing processes in memory and identifying ALL of them instead of just a select few. 

Finding a process in the memory indicates that the file is actively running and using memory, meaning that it presents a danger. An idle file cannot cause harm. 

One can not simply identify malicious processes by themselves. Attempting to find a malicious process is similar to trying to find a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle looks like.

Conclusion

Antivirus is not as effective as you may have originally thought. Although it is not completely useless, and there are lots of benefits to having it downloaded, it just goes to show that malware and other viruses, such as zero-day can still possibly appear. 

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