When selecting antivirus software for your business or home, you should consider more than the rate of detection of a program during controlled tests. You must also be sure that it’s able to effectively detect new viruses and other malware. Virus writers work hard to devise methods of defeating antivirus software. They create viruses to disable them, hide them from detection methods, and even get around anti-virus software.
One of the first types of antivirus programs compared files that were received by devices to their database of malware that they have identified. This is a kind of signature detection and works very well for older malware, however the problem is that virus creators can create signatures for different types of viruses at any moment, meaning the antivirus protection will always be in the process of catching up.
Modern versions of antivirus software utilize Heuristic detection to detect possible threats. Rather than looking for exact matches, heuristics analyze patterns in programs and files to determine if they match those of known malware. This technique is augmented by behavior-based detection, which examines the way in which a software or file behaves to determine if it’s malicious.
Certain viruses attempt to stop anti-virus software by hiding, preventing access to the antivirus program’s updates system, or causing corruption to code or library files needed for an antivirus scanner to work. Some viruses are more sophisticated and will directly modify or disable parts of the antivirus software. These viruses are becoming increasingly popular and include features such as the worm component, which can be transmitted from one computer to another.
