Antivirus Software: It’s All About Protection Against Antivirus Computer Infiltration

antivirusUnlike other malicious programs such as spyware, worms, adware, rootkits, phishing, and Trojans, viruses are computer programs that have the uncanny ability to spread to infect various system files and can be transmitted over networks, the Internet, email, instant email. Messaging, file sharing channels, and removable media such as floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, or USBs. Some computer viral infections display symptoms that most computer users will eventually notice. However, the vast majority of computer viruses are covert and wreak havoc that go unnoticed long enough for the damage to be irreversible. Those are the reasons why antivirus software products are so important.

Antivirus software programs were originally created to combat computer viruses that began to spread in the 1980s. Today’s more sophisticated antivirus software programs are more prolific and therefore able to identify and remove viruses along with all other harmful malware. Upon encountering any malware, antivirus software programs will quarantine or encrypt infected files to make them inaccessible or ineffective; they will try to repair the files by removing the malware, but that may not always be successful; or they will remove the infected files completely from the system.

Antivirus software programs are numerous and all use one or more of the following three key methods to identify malware: The most widely used method is the signature-based detection method. This method divides files into small segments and compares the content of each of these segments against a virus signature dictionary, which is essentially a list of known virus codes. This method is somewhat limited in that it can run its comparison only against known viruses and thus will not be able to detect any new ones. Antivirus software that relies on the signature-based detection method requires frequent updates to its virus signature dictionary and is configured to scan all files when they are created, opened, closed, or e-mailed by the computer’s operating system .

The malicious activity detection method monitors the behavior of all programs and thus provides protection against new viruses. Any suspicious behavior is reported to the computer used to decide how to proceed: reject or accept. The heuristic-based detection method is used by most advanced and high-end antivirus software and is designed to identify new and as yet unknown viruses.

To carry out its task, antivirus software using the heuristic-based detection method used one of two techniques: a) File scanning – scans files that contain suspicious and virus-like instructions that can significantly slow down the computer; or b) File Emulation: Runs programs in virtual environments, takes note of their actions and performances, and then determines whether or not those programs are malicious.

It goes without saying that the optimal and most effective antivirus software is the one that uses a combination of several of the methods mentioned above. After all antivirus software, it is about protection against antivirus computer infiltration and security maintenance.