The back-and-forth between Kaspersky and McAfee is understandable, said John Pescatore, a Gartner analyst who covers security.

"The old days of antivirus companies like McAfee and Kaspersky seeing things real quickly because [malware] hits thousands of mailboxes, those days are over," said Pescatore. "Look at the industry. Desktop security is not doing that well, [so] they're dueling on how scary things are."

Technologies from smartphones and tablets to cloud-based computing and Apple's Mac are stealing usage share from Windows PCs, long the foundation of the antivirus industry, Pescatore pointed out.

APT is a misnomer, said Pescatore, and has come to define attacks that supposedly are launched by Chinese hackers, with the implication that they're backed by China's government.

"It's a big mistake to focus on where these attacks are coming from," said Pescatore, "The real issue is that they're targeted, aimed at one company or 10 companies or an industry."