Security boffins at the University of Michigan claim that a "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection could kill off the need for AV software on PCs.

Farnam Jahanian, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan Department of Computer Science, told the  USENIX Security Symposium that traditional antivirus software was increasingly ineffective and could only find 35 percent of recent threats.

They have developed something called CloudAV, which moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. It analyses suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behaviorral detection programs simultaneously.

It will be handy to use on mobiles that aren't powerful enough to carry useful antivirus software. The CloudAV system uses 12 different detectors that act together to tell the inquiring computer whether the item is safe to open.