Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new “cloud computing” approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan.

Cloud computing refers to applications and services provided seamlessly on the Internet.

Traditional antivirus software is installed on millions of individual computers around the world but according to researchers, antivirus software from popular vendors is increasingly ineffective. The researchers observed malware, malicious software, detection rates as low as 35 percent against the most recent threats and an average window of vulnerability exceeding 48 days. That means new threats went undetected for an average of seven weeks. The computer scientists also found severe vulnerabilities in the antivirus engines themselves.

The researchers’ new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the “network cloud” and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously.

“CloudAV virtualizes and parallelizes detection functionality with multiple antivirus engines, significantly increasing overall protection,” said Farnam Jahanian, professor of computer science and engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.