How The Antivirus Detects Virus?

All program files (executable) that enter a system go through the antivirus scan. Those that match the signatures are classified as viruses and are blacklisted. The other program files then pass through the Defense + HIPS ( Host Intrusion Prevention System). Here the known files would be allowed entry and would run in the system while the unknown ones, irrespective of whether they are good or bad, are sent to the Defense+ Sandbox. These would be allowed to run, but only in this restricted environment. Those that the user allows as good files would be added to the Whitelist while all others would remain in the sandbox, after which they would go to the Comodo labs for analysis.

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Full System Scans

Full system scans are generally not essential when you already have an on access scanning facility. Full system scans are essential when you install antivirus software for the first time or you have updated your antivirus software recently. This is done to make sure that there are no viruses present hidden on your system. Full system scans are also useful when you repair your infected computer.

Virus Definitions

Antivirus software depends on the virus definitions to identify malware. That is the reason it updates on the new viruses definitions. Malware definitions contain signatures for any new viruses and other malware that has been classified as wild. If the antivirus software scans any application or file and if it finds the file infected by a malware that is similar to the malware in the malware definition. Then antivirus software terminates the file from executing pushing it to the quarantine. The malware is processed accordingly corresponding to the type of virus protections.

It is really essential for all the antivirus companies to update the definitions with the latest malware to ensure PC protection combating even the most latest form of malicious threat.

Signature-based detection - This is most common in Traditional antivirus software that checks all the .EXE files and validates it with the known list of viruses and other types of malware. or it checks if the unknown executable files shows any misbehaviour as a sign of unknown viruses.

Files, programs and applications are basically scanned when they in use. Once an executable file is downloaded. It is scanned for any malware instantly. Antivirus software can also be used without the background on access scanning, but it is always advisable to use on access scanning because it is complex to remove malware once it infects your system

Heuristic-based detection - This type of detection is most commonly used in combination with signature-based detection. Heuristic technology is deployed in most of the antivirus programs. This helps the antivirus software to detect new or a variant or an altered version of malware, even in the absence of the latest virus definitions.

Antivirus programs use heuristics, by running susceptible programs or applications with suspicious code on it, within a runtime virtual environment. This keeps the vulnerable code from infecting the real world environment.

Behavioural-based detection - This type of detection is used in Intrusion Detection mechanism. This concentrates more in detecting the characteristics of the malware during execution. This mechanism detects malware only while the malware performs malware actions.

Sandbox detection - It functions most likely to that of behavioral based detection method. It executes any applications in the virtual environment to track what kind of actions it performs. Verifying the actions of the program that are logged in, the antivirus software can identify if the program is malicious or not.

Data mining techniques - This is of the latest trends in detecting a malware. With a set of program features, Data mining helps to find if the program is malicious or not.

Why is Updating Antivirus Software So Important?

Updating antivirus is critical for the security of any system. This is because any system gets constantly threatened and attacked by new viruses every day. Antivirus updates would have latest definition files that are needed to identify and combat new viruses.

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