Compare Antivirus Software

Computers are an everyday part of our lives. We use them to keep track of our schedules, our phone numbers, and our financial data. We hear about how people have gotten hacked and lost valuable information or had lots of money stolen from them. The question that comes to mind is how we can protect ourselves to the best of our abilities against having the same thing happen to us?

One that’s a big problem to companies especially, and very annoying to individual people is CryptoLocker. This virus is something called ransomware. It is important to ensure your Web Design Ipswich webmaster has the right security in your website to avoid virus and malware hacks. What it does is it encrypts your hard drive and any hard drive that’s attached over the network to yours. What this boils down to is that one person in a company opening the wrong attachment has the potential to cause the whole system to go down. The virus is called ransomware because it asks for a ransom to get your hard drive back. Even paying the ransom doesn’t mean that you’ll get your computer back, sometimes the key doesn’t work and then you have to pay again to try again.

The last virus I’m going to point out is the Stuxnet virus. This virus was created for cyber warfare. It was designed to interrupt the Iranians nuclear efforts. It managed to ruin one-fifth of the Iranian’s nuclear centrifuges. The worm attacked the industrial Programmable Logical Controller which is the language that automates machinery. This is scary because a lot of our industrial infrastructure such as utilities use this language to run correctly.

How Anti-Virus Works

The most common way anti-virus works is to compare the files on your computer to codes in a signature database. All virus’s have signatures, so this way does work. This type of anti-virus needs to be regularly updated, so new virus’s are protected against. It’s weak against brand new virus’s that don’t have a signature in the database yet, but an internet connection isn’t required when it’s scanning.
A newer way to look for virus’s is something called heuristic scanning or behavior based scanning. These types of software look at how software and files are behaving and block them based on that. This kind of anti-virus is strong against new virus’s and can be run without internet connectivity. Because it’s newer, the software tends to be more expensive than other types of anti-virus.
There’s a hybrid model that can use both versions of scanning. This is called cloud based and looks at everything on a network. This has all of the advantages of the previous types, but it also needs internet connectivity.

Anti-virus is essential because it protects against hackers getting sensitive information. Companies and individuals need to use anti-virus because identity theft isn’t just for corporations. There are many different types of virus’s and a long history of virus’s. As long as there are hackers in this world, there will be virus’s. There are various types of anti-virus to help meet the needs of the individual and the needs of a company.