What is Antivirus?
Antivirus is the name of a software program designed to detect, prevent and remove malicious programs (also known as malware) from computers and laptops. These programs can harm devices and the data stored on them in various ways, including stealing personal information, corrupting files, and degrading system performance. Malware can be inadvertently downloaded via email attachments, downloaded from untrusted websites, or inserted into external devices like hard drives and USB adapters.
Most antivirus programs work by first checking the files on a computer against a database of known malware threats. If a file is determined to be malicious, it’s isolated from other files and thoroughly deleted. Modern AV programs also employ methods like heuristic analysis to catch as-of-yet unknown, but suspected malware strains.
The days when off-the-shelf antivirus solutions were good enough to keep an organization’s systems safe from viruses are long gone. Today’s advanced threats require an arsenal of tools to identify and stop them, including global threat intelligence sharing, behavioral detection, machine learning, sandboxing, and other next-gen approaches.
Antivirus software is a critical component of any cybersecurity toolkit, protecting devices against ransomware, reducing cyberattack damage and loss, and minimizing downtime and disruption. It’s also a critical part of any endpoint protection solution, providing real-time scanning and blocking intrusive pop-ups to protect users from the most dangerous attacks. The escalating number of cyberattacks and the growing popularity of IoT devices are driving significant growth in the antivirus market, forecast to reach US$5.1bn by 2028.