Antivirus software attempts to detect, quarantine, or block malware. It helps protect your computer against cybercriminals.
How does Antivirus Software work?
Anti-virus software looks at data traveling over the network to see if there are any viruses or malware on your computer. It searches for known malware and monitors the behaviour of every program, flagging suspicious activity. It aims to stop malware as quickly as possible.
What are the different types of antivirus protection?
There are several different types of antivirus software available today. To set up your umbrella of protection properly, it’s essential to understand the more common anti-virus programs available.
Malware signature antivirus
Malicious software, or malware, installs viruses and spy ware on your computer or device. Malware can steal your sensitive personal information, use your computer to send spam, crash your computer and basically give cyber criminals the ability to monitor and control your online activities.
Malware signature antivirus software detects malware signatures (which are digital fingerprints of malicious software) in a computer file system or program. This antivirus protection detects, quarantines, and removes the virus.
System monitoring antivirus
This anti-virus program can monitor software and computer system activity for behaviour that is suspicious or abnormal of its user. For example, an alert is created when a user connects from an unknown location (e.g. a strange IP address), when they use a lot of data, or attempts to access a lot of files.
Machine learning antivirus
Another way to protect computers and networks from malware is by using machine learning techniques, which analyses normal computer or network behaviours. This type of software can limit computer usage if it detects suspicious activity.
More specifically, machine-learning detection implements algorithms to facilitate computer security that is broader in scope than traditional signature-based detection methods. Multiple layers of protection is why this type of antivirus protection works so well. It can recognise the signs of good and bad files, enabling it to spot malicious patterns and detect malware — no matter whether it’s been seen before or not.
