In the thesis "The Protective Potential of Antivirus Programs", written to earn the academic degree Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Dominik Sauer shows the limits of current antivirus programs. In his thesis, he developed a generic methodology for bypassing antivirus programs and, by way of a survey conducted in relevant circles, assigned these capabilities to attacker profiles. The results show that antivirus programs offer only a limited protective potential.
At his own request, this thesis has been published here. He submitted it on 25 January 2016 at Hochschule Darmstadt (Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences) in the computer science program (with a self-organized focus on IT security). The thesis was graded 1.0 - the best grade in the German system.