Anti-virus

Antivirus

Virus{Definition}

Though it is unclear even within the anti-virus industry what actually constitutes a virus, one known element is that it is a program designed to replicate. Spread is achieved by infecting other files within a system. Viruses can also incorporate a payload, which is often malicious. The first PC virus was discovered in-the-wild in 1986, and today, there are over 54,000 viruses that are currently known. About 200 of the viruses that exist at any time are in-the-wild threats. Viruses have been made even more effective by being combined with worms and Trojans, to do more damage to a system while spreading faster.

Anti-virus

A software or hardware designed to identify and remove a known or potential computer virus, worm, or trojan horse. Or Program used to stop or prevent your computer being infected by a computer virus. A computer virus essentially acts like a biological virus and most usually gets into a computer system through unsolicited email.

Anti-virus is the term used for the technology and software that acts to detect malicious codes, prevent these codes or files from infecting and damaging your system, and to also remove any malicious codes that have gotten through. Anti-virus vendors, share information and keep in constant contact to make sure any malicious code outbreaks are quickly reported and dealt with. Anti-virus vendors also usually participate in independent tests to check and certify their products for speed and thoroughness when detecting and disinfecting viruses. The original versions of anti-virus software look through files for malicious code as they enter the system, or as the user requests it (manually). More recent versions of antivirus programs, such as NOD 32, often depends on integrity checking, and sometimes behavior blocking to prevent files from unauthorized modifications, or to stop various sequences of code from changing anything internally.

Antivirus software.

Antivirus software is a term used to describe a computer program that attempts to identify, neutralize or eliminate malicious software. This type of software is so named because the earliest examples were designed exclusively to combat computer viruses; however most modern antivirus software is now designed to combat a wide range of threats, including worms, phishing attacks, rootkits, trojan horses and other malware.

Antivirus software typically uses two different techniques to accomplish this:

Examining (scanning) files to look for known viruses matching definitions in a virus dictionary

Identifying suspicious behavior from any computer program which might indicate infection. Such analysis may include data captures, port monitoring and other methods.

Most commercial antivirus software uses both of these approaches, with an emphasis on the virus dictionary approach. { A utility that searches a hard disk for viruses and removes any that are found. Most antivirus programs include an auto-update feature that enables the program to download profiles of new viruses so that it can check for the new viruses as soon as they are discovered.