"Antivirus is the ultimate back door," Blake Darche, a former N.S.A. operator and co-founder of Area 1 Security. "It provides consistent, reliable and remote access that can be used for any purpose, from launching a destructive attack to conducting espionage on thousands or even millions of users."

Humble opinion: s/Antivirus/Automatic updates/

Perhaps antivirus were in fact an early experiment to test the feasbility of automatic software updates.

I recall many years ago, pre-smartphone, users being advised to leave their computers online 24/7 "so antivirus could download updates". Yikes.