The £629 Million Reason You Need Antivirus Software

Antivirus software is a bit like car insurance, but for your digital life. You know you need it, you’re never quite sure what it actually covers and 99% of the time, it seems like it’s doing nothing at all. Don’t forget the mumbling around the time of renewal as well. Of course, it’s that way until the day something actually does happen – then you’re thanking your lucky stars that you’ve got it.

UK Finance reported that £629.3 million was fraudulently acquired in the first six months of 2025. It’s an alarmingly large number for something covering just a six month period. It seems that cybercriminals are having quite the spectacular decade. For everyone else, it’s a big security concern.

According to the UK Government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey for 2025/2026, about 612,000 companies suffered a cyber breach or attack in the past year. And those “nationally significant” cyber attacks handled by the NCSC? There’s about four happening every week now, almost doubled compared to last year.

And in all of that noise, your digital assets exist. They can be a target, just as much as a business is, even if you think cybercriminals have bigger targets to focus on. Antivirus software, however, is the reason that they are less likely to be successful with targeting you.

What Counts As A Digital Asset?

At one point, digital assets used to mean cryptocurrency and NFTs – at least, if you happened to ask a finance bro at a networking event in 2021.

Today, it’s a lot broader and more personal. It covers your online banking, saved passwords, the 12,000 photos on your phone that you’ve been meaning to go through and even your Netflix and Amazon accounts. Yes, those are worth something on the dark web too. Even a scan of your drivers license or passport that you emailed to yourself once counts as a digital asset.

The point is, if it lives on one of your devices and if losing it would have catastrophic consequences, then it’s a digital asset worth protecting. To be completely honest, most of the digital things that we own have probably snowballed so quickly than we’ve bothered to notice, so this may be a wake-up call for some – especially if you’re asking yourself right now: “Wait, do I even have an antivirus software?”

The Dangers Lurking Behind Innocent Clicks

Malware isn’t just one type of threat anymore. It’s got a whole extended family now, and they all come with different specialties. You’ve got viruses that come with infected files and trojans pretending to be useful software. Moving on to the bit more sophisticated, there’s spyware that watches your activity and ransomware that locks your files and demands payment to get it back (usually in crypto, so there’s no chance of getting it back afterwards).

Not only have the threats changed, but so have their delivery methods. Phishing still remains the most common form of cyber attack, as reported by 38% of UK businesses last year. 69% of those businesses affected said that it was their most disruptive attack to date.

With the help of AI, it’s only getting much harder to spot the threats between the legitimate. An email could come across so convincingly or a login page of a website that you recognise but it just takes one click and you’ve got something downloading itself onto your device without your permission. This is where antivirus will step in.

Here’s What Antivirus Does Without You Noticing

When antivirus software first came out, it usually did a once-a-week check for known viruses. Now, they’re far more proactive and scan your device in real time. There’s no opened file, email attachment or website link that doesn’t automatically get checked against a known list of threats or monitored to see how it’s behaving.

The issue with only using a known list of threats to compare to is that new malware is popping up almost every day. So the monitoring of behaviour, aptly called behaviour-based detection, is the most effective way to find threats that didn’t previously exist. In other words, if a new app tries to encrypt your photos at three in the morning, your antivirus will shut it down before you even know something is up.

Essentially, antivirus handles all of the security admin while you use your device. Any dodgy-looking files get quarantined, access to suspicious websites are blocked and even USB sticks are scanned before they get the go-ahead to load.

The Ever-Present Threat Of Ransomware

Ransomware attacks on UK businesses dropped to just 1% of survey respondents last year and while that percentage looks promising on the surface, you have to keep in mind that the ones that do hit are usually catastrophic – even in that 1%.

The costliest cyber attack in British history happened roughly this time last year to Jaguar Land Rover. It halted production for five weeks and cost £1.9 billion economic impact. The M&S Co-op that happened earlier in the year cost the two retailers somewhere between £270 million and £440 million.

Antivirus software is one of the biggest, overlooked reasons that more incidents don’t become headlines like these. It also doesn’t mean that using it in isolation will keep you 100% safe. It takes a bit of a more secure setup involving several aspects that work together for your security. That means using password managers (seems like a hassle, but at least you don’t need to remember all of them), regularly updating your software, two-factor authentication where possible and of course, having your antivirus software in the background.

Is Free Antivirus Software Enough?

The biggest question you’ll face when it comes to antivirus software is should you pay for one or can you get away with a free version? It’s very much a personal choice and also largely depends on what you do on your device.

If you have Windows, Windows Defender is built in and free of charge. For a free option, it works pretty well and if you’re just emailing, casually browsing online or streaming, it may be enough for you.

But if you’re concerned about the security of your digital assets, a paid option might be the better route. Paid plans tend to include other security features as well like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), parental controls and dark web monitoring. Prices for these range between £20 and £40 a year and if you’re comparing that against the £629 million UK cybercriminals stole last year, it’s quite a bargain.