What Is Antivirus and How Does It Work?
Antivirus is computer protection software that scans, prevents, detects and removes software viruses and malware like worms, Trojans and ransomware. It’s a vital tool for protecting your devices and data against sophisticated cyber attacks that can compromise the integrity of information systems and steal or destroy critical data.
Antivirus solutions typically use a combination of detection methods to identify malware, including signature detection and behavioral analysis (also called behavior blocking). Signature detection compares files, programs and applications that come in and out of your system against a database of known virus kinds. If similar or identical matches are detected, the program is quarantined and analyzed in order to detect any infection or potential threat.
Malware can be triggered by an unsuspecting user doing something like opening a malicious email attachment, clicking on a bad link or viewing a phishing ad. Once a virus is activated, it can then spread from device to device, corrupting and destroying data. Antivirus software can help protect against the threats that are known to exist by performing regular updates to its virus databases and analyzing files, programs and devices for signs of malware.
Some antivirus software also performs on-access scanning, checking specific files or directories as they are accessed by the user and identifying any suspicious activity in real time. And, some offer scheduled device scans that run on a routine basis, usually daily or weekly. Regardless of whether it’s on-access or scheduled, most antivirus software will alert the security team to any viruses found in order to eliminate them from your devices.