What is Antivirus?
Antivirus is software designed to prevent, scan, detect and remove malware (malicious software) from your computers and laptops – and the data on them. Malware includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware and other threats that are designed to steal or corrupt your information. Viruses can get onto your computer from an attachment in a dubious email, USB stick or by visiting a malicious website. Once there, they can steal your data, encrypt it so you can’t access it and even destroy it completely. Antivirus protection helps stop these kinds of malware attacks by monitoring and scanning incoming data, including emails, websites, external devices like hard drives and identifying network security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. Antivirus protection uses different methods to detect and block malware, including signature-based detection which compares files against a database of unique “signatures” or patterns known to belong to specific malware and heuristic analysis which looks for characteristics that could indicate potential threats.
Advanced antivirus protection also uses behavioral analysis to look for patterns of behavior that could indicate a threat. For example, if a file attempts to access a large number of files quickly or hide its presence it may be flagged as suspicious by heuristic detection. Some products also use sandboxing to run suspicious files in a controlled environment and determine whether they behave normally or not. With cybercrime costs expected to exceed $10.5 trillion by 2025, robust antivirus malware protection is essential for your home and business. While built-in tools like Microsoft Defender and macOS XProtect provide a basic level of protection, for the best results you need a premium third-party solution.