What is an antivirus ?

An Antivirus is a kind of software used to prevent, scan, detect and delete viruses from a computer. Once installed, most antivirus software runs automatically in the background to provide real-time protection against virus attacks.

Comprehensive virus protection programs help protect your files and hardware from malware such as spyware, and may also offer additional protection such as customizable firewalls and website blocking.

What does antivirus do?

As cybercrime evolves and becomes more sophisticated, whether it’s your own PC or other devices on a larger network, you don’t want to leave yourself or your network vulnerable.

Antivirus software is a vital component of your overall online and computer security strategy in its protection against data and security breaches along with other threats.

Viruses are designed to give criminals access to their victims’ devices.

These viruses, spyware, and other malicious software are known as malware, and can be surreptitiously installed on your computer or device. Malware can do everything from crashing your device to monitoring or controlling your online activity. This control may enable hackers to send spam and steal your private information, which could eventually lead to identity theft.

Antivirus software provides protection against these types of threats by performing key tasks:

• Pinpointing specific files for the detection of malicious software.
• Scheduling automatic scans .
• Allow you to initiate a scan of a particular file or your entire computer, or of a CD or flash drive at any time.
• Scanning either one file or your entire computer at your discretion.
• Deleting malicious codes and software.
• Confirming the safety of your computer and other devices.
• Scan specific files or directories for any malware or known malicious patterns.
• Allow you to initiate a scan of a particular file or your entire computer, or of a CD or flash drive at any time.
• Show you the ‘health’ of your computer.

 How it works ?

To combat the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity threats, antivirus programs have changed and expanded their scope to include a multitude of different tactics and strategies to protect your computers, networks and smart devices. 

In fact, antivirus software must protect not only against viruses, but also against malware, ransomware, phishing, spam, hacking and more. 

To do this, today’s antivirus software uses several methods to protect devices and data. Here is a quick overview of how antivirus software works. 

• Behavioral detection 

Behavioral detection methods will compare the functions of an operating system with those of another program running on the computer. Any atypical behavior identified is indicative of a virus or malware, so the program with the atypical behaviors will be quarantined and removed by the antivirus. The behavior-based approach can even identify novel malware and examine an application’s potential to perform harmful functions.

• Generic detection 

 Sometimes not all predefined characteristics define all types of virus codes. The Antivirus software then uses its knowledge of malicious code to identify pieces of code that might look malicious and alienates them. 

The user is then allowed to determine whether he/she thinks it is a safe program, and if not safe, the program is removed from the system.

• Specific detection  

The antivirus scans the device for suspected malware using a set of predefined characteristics from the code base. It does this by comparing suspicious codes to these predefined characteristics and eliminating those that match.

• Signature-based detection 

Computer viruses have signatures or numeric code, which are a string of characters or numbers. Signature-based detection works by searching for these signatures, then quarantining and deleting them when they are identified. 

The signature-based method is useful for developing a signature database that can be used to search for threats.

What are its benefits ?

Besides answering the question “what is an antivirus?” or “how it works?” , you are probably curious about its advantages . Knowing these benefits can help convince you to invest in an antivirus program. 

1-Protection against viruses : 

This is the primary function of an antivirus program. It is difficult to define an antivirus without mentioning this aspect among its many advantages. The program protects the computer from viruses, malware, spyware and other unknown threats and eliminates them before these malicious programs can harm the device’s system. 

An effective antivirus program would have developed a list of good and bad files to help distinguish a program to know whether it is harmful or not.   

• If a virus has attacked your system, you can potentially transfer it to your networks . So , if you want to protect your computer system as well as the computers of your employees and/or clients , consider getting an antivirus. 

2- Blocking spam sites and ads : 

If you do a quick survey on how viruses enter their victims’ computer systems, you will be surprised by the proportion of viruses that use pop-up ads and websites to make their way into your computer. 

Pop-up ads and spam sites are one of the most common gateways used by viruses to infect your computer and damage your files.

3- Protection against online threats : 

With constant access to the Internet, computer owners have to fight against many cyber threats. But the good news is , investing in an antivirus program can prevent them from accessing the computer. 

4- Protection against removable devices : 

Think of the times you’ve transferred data to and from your computer using removable devices such as USB sticks. Countless times, right?

Perhaps you’ve suffered a computer slowdown or crash after connecting a colleague’s flash drive. Have you ever wondered why this happened? The reason is that the USB or removable device was used as a transmission device for a virus. So, should you stop using removable devices because you never know which USB drive may contain a virus?

No . Just get anti-virus software that will scan all removable devices for potential viruses to ensure that no viruses are transferred.

5- Firewall protection : 

A firewall, in general, monitors the traffic entering and leaving your computer network. When combined with anti-virus software, firewall protection re-checks each file or piece of data that you send or transfer from your computer over the Internet to another network.

The same applies to files and data you receive from an external network. 

You may unwittingly open a malicious website or email and then fall prey to a phishing attack.

 A phishing attack occurs when attackers specifically target your login credentials, credit card information or any other personal information/data. Such an attack can result in significant financial loss or personal leakage. 

Two-way firewall protection against antivirus software blocks and deletes all such emails or files that can harm you in such a way.

6- Faster computer : 

Think of two computers side by side.

One of them suffers the consequences of a virus attack, such as slow processing speed and frequent crashes. The other is protected by an antivirus. Which one will have better speed?

The one with an antivirus for sure. This is so because this computer has no problems because the antivirus stopped the virus before it could cause any real damage. Some antivirus programs can even delete and remove unnecessary files from unknown sources to free up disk space, thus increasing the speed of the PC.

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