Antivirus software

Antivirus software

Antivirus software, or anti-virus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. In particular, modern antivirus software can protect users from malicious browser helper objects (BHOs), browser hijackers, ransomware, keyloggers, backdoors, rootkits, trojan horses, worms, malicious LSPs, dialers, fraud tools, adware, and spyware. Furthermore, computer virus authors and antivirus vendors have constantly fought to prevent tracking game by creating new virus signatures. These days malware becomes more and more sophisticated, using high-level code to resist antivirus detection. Wanjala and Jacob (2017) state polymorphic and metamorphic computer viruses are probably the most challenging viruses to identify. All forms of viruses are capable of mutating into an infinite number of functionally equivalent versions of themselves.

Why roll play an antivirus?

Talking about a program whose function is to search and remove computer viruses and other malicious software, often known as malware. Antivirus software is a key component of user overall cyber and network security strategy to defend against data and malware vulnerabilities along with other risks. A computer virus is similar to the cold virus. It is spread itself from a computer or device to any other with whom it comes in contact, which can damage and infiltrate in operating systems.
Antivirus software provides protection against this type of attack. According to Norton (2020), antivirus software confers the following tasks:

• Pinpointing specific files for the detection of malicious software
• Scheduling automatic scans 
• 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

With many antiviruses on the market today, several methods have been used to identify and control viruses, e.g. like static analysis, a virus is identified by checking the archives or reports of virus template events without actually running the application.
In my research about antivirus, I have found some company which provides a good defense against malware. For example McAfee, Norton, Kasperski and Eset Nod 32. There are many others that provide antivirus for free, however, I am not sure how safe is to use this free software. From my experience with McAfee, I can say McAfee is one of the best company which offer security for an acceptable price.


Conclusion
With the Internet as a primary communication tool for billions of people and also a platform for exchange, social interaction, viruses are rapidly under attack as new unknown signatures are increasing to identify antiviruses during scanning. Anti-virus software utilizes a malware signature to find a virus in a computer file system to identify, block, and uninstall a virus.

Reference list:

Johansen, A., 2020. What Is Antivirus Software? Antivirus Definition | Norton. [online] Us.norton.com. Available at: <https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-is-antivirus.html> [Accessed 26 February 2020].



Yusuf, Muchelule & Neyole, Wanjala & Jacob, Misiko & Muchelule, Yusuf & Neyole, Jacob. (2017). Review of Viruses and Antivirus Patterns Software & Data Engineering Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology: C Review of Viruses and Antivirus Patterns. Journal of Computer Science and Technology. 17(3).