BotNet News

Antivirus is the most basic form of malware protection. The term is used to describe software that detects, removes and blocks computer viruses — though it’s now often synonymous with security solutions that offer broad, deep protection from malware in general, including ransomware, spyware, adware, spam, phishing and many more categories of cyber-threats.

Think of antivirus as your computer’s immune system: It scans every file that wants to enter and compares it against a database of known viruses, trojans, worms and other types of malicious programs. Some programs will alert you when a new kind of virus has been detected (usually with a pop-up or dialog box) while others will isolate the threat, stop it from spreading and then thoroughly delete it.

The simplest AV solutions use signature-based detection, which collects digital “signatures” from existing malware and uses them to identify unknown threats. The best AV software also employs behavior-based detection, which uses advanced analytics to identify suspicious activity and neutralize malicious processes. These days, it’s important to have both of these layers to ensure the most complete protection from a wide range of cyber-threats.

In addition to these critical protections, you’ll want a good antivirus solution to have other features such as firewalls and spam filtering to further enhance your cybersecurity posture. It should also employ endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities to identify and respond to advanced threats at the individual device level, as well as encryption technologies to secure sensitive data. Finally, it should support various cybersecurity frameworks and concepts such as the MITRE ATT&CK framework and the principle of least privilege.