Anti-virus Programs
An Antivirus is a software application or a program designed and developed to scan, detect and terminate malicious software like viruses, computer worms, adware, trojans and more.
A Solution for Securing the Digital Environment
There are a myriad of antivirus solutions available under the sun. Each Antivirus is different in its own way, from the set of features it offers to the different identification methods that each of the applications is developed to provide.
Each antivirus implements different identification methods and each of them vary depending on the various range of methods it uses as defense factors in detecting the threats.
These are some of the methods which any antivirus program can use to identify malware and its infectious activities
Got more than 1 PC? Get 3 Licenses for $39.99
Sandbox Identification Method
Sandbox Identification Method – Anti-virus programs implement the use of this behavioural-based identification method, which detects and identifies the function of the malware in a separate virtual environment. . The program activities are examined to identify if it is malicious or not through some characterized features. If it is not found malicious, the antivirus allows the program to be executed in real-time environment.
Data Mining technique: This is certainly one of a kind with updated technology in detecting malicious or malware infections. This implements data mining algorithms to identify and differentiate the file behavior, comparing it with database of actual file features, withdrawn from the file itself.
-
Signature-based Identification
Method Conventional Antivirus Applications depend upon signatures to detect malware. The security experts analyze the malware that is newly introduced and extract the malware signature file to add it to the signature database of the antivirus software.
-
Heuristics
Most viruses are released with the intention to cause a single infection. With further variations or refinements, these multiply and grow into different strains called variants. In general, the detection and removal happens with single virus definitions.
Heuristics-based antivirus programs have the advantage of detecting not just a specific virus but also detecting a virus family with the help of a generic signature, if there are no matches to an existing signature. Security experts come up with a similar feature that is common with almost all the viruses in a family, which creates a common and single generic signature. This generic feature stands as a roadmap to identify any type of virus, even when it is clubbed with some extra malicous code. This is type of detection is called heuristic detection method. -
Rootkit detection Method
Rootkits are a kind of malicious application that work to adopt administrative control over the targeted system without being detected. The rootkits work much in advance so that it detours the normal functionality of the operating system, and also possibly makes the antivirus application ineffective.
Detecting rootkits is sometimes challenging for some conventional antivirus programs, and there are cases that require the infected operating system to be re-installed. -
Real-time protection
There are other features in an antivirus that combine to ensure real-time protection. They include on-access scanning, shield for resisting virus or malware entry, instant resistance, anti-spyware and such.
All this together, in any antivirus software, takes control of the system to help detect and identify computer viruses, adware and other malicious traits in real-time.
Comodo Anti virus program – The Comodo Antivirus/Internet Security suite offers a commendable solution to utilize all the above-mentioned detection/identification techniques, while embracing additional robust security/protection techniques to defy even the most threatening zero-day or unknown threats.
