Antivirus – What is it and How Does it Work?
Antivirus is a software program that detects, prevents and removes malicious programs like viruses, worms, and malware. It’s one of the most important elements of an effective computer and online security strategy.
Malware:
Cybercriminals develop viruses, worms and other types of malware that damage or infiltrate operating systems, data networks and devices. These malicious pieces of code often target sensitive information and can cause significant system downtime, loss of data, or a catastrophic financial loss.
Traditional antivirus protection is largely ineffective against modern viruses, which use evasive tactics to shield themselves from detection. This means it’s critical for businesses and MSPs to adopt next-generation endpoint detection and response (EDR) and extended detection and response (XDR) solutions that integrate global threat intelligence, human expert threat analysis, industry collaboration, cloud integration and alerting services to counter today’s threats.
Signature-based detection:
Most forms of antivirus software use a database of malware signatures, which cybersecurity vendors have built up over time to identify suspicious code. However, these signatures must be constantly updated as new malware strains are discovered and malware authors tamper with their creations to avoid detection (or release polymorphic malware that changes its code signature over time).
Behavior-based detection:
Rather than relying on a static database of known threats, many antivirus programs now incorporate a behavior-based approach to detect new or unknown malware. This is a much more modern and innovative approach to detecting threats that relies on machine learning and behavioral analysis.