About 4 years ago, while I was working at Avira,  I wrote this article for (ISC)2’s blog. Security “for free”? I wrote back then about how to cover all attack vectors for malware. I also wrote about the hidden costs, which many people tend to ignore. These costs are not acquisition costs. They are even not easily visible. I concluded, that it is possible to achieve a decent degree of security without any acquisition costs. However, there are drawbacks and there are hidden maintenance costs. For those who are interested in having software that works for them and not the other way around, it is advisable to get a paid security solution that covers all the relevant attack vectors and offers a decent quality of service.   I am very proud to say that I would not change anything in that article, even back then I could have been biased by working for Avira, one of the major players in this space. I guess that this is what makes one a professional.   Four years later In these four years, AVG, one of the major players in Free AV field was acquired by Avast. Malware Bytes became a major player…