aNtI ViRuS

AbOuT aNtI vIrUs

Antivirus or anti-virus software (usually written with the acronym of AV) is software used to prevent, detect and remove malware (of all descriptions), such as: computer viruses, malicious BHOs, hijackers, ransomware, keyloggers, backdoors, rootkits, trojan horses,worms, malicious LSPs, dialers, fraudtools, adware and spyware. Computer security, including protection from social engineeringtechniques, is commonly offered in products and services of antivirus software companies. This page discusses the software used for the prevention and removal of malware threats, rather than computer security implemented by software methods.
A variety of strategies are typically employed. Signature-based detection involves searching for known patterns of data withinexecutable code. However, it is possible for a computer to be infected with new malware for which no signature is yet known. Tocounter such so-called zero-day threats, heuristics can be used. One type of heuristic approach, generic signatures, can identify new viruses or variants of existing viruses by looking for known malicious code, or slight variations of such code, in files. Some antivirus software can also predict what a file will do by running it in a sandbox and analyzing what it does to see if it performs any malicious actions.
No matter how useful antivirus software can be, it can sometime have drawbacks. Antivirus software can impair a computer's performance. Inexperienced users may also have problems understanding the prompts and decisions that antivirus software presents them with. An incorrect decision may lead to a security breach. If the antivirus software employs heuristic detection, success depends on achieving the right balance between false positives and false negatives. False positives can be as destructive as false negatives.[1]Finally, antivirus software generally runs at the highly trusted kernel level of the operating system, creating a potential avenue ofattack.[2]