Whether you are a home user or running a business, an antivirus solution is necessary for your computer. However, an antivirus solution meant for an enterprise or business charges a significant amount of money per year. The primary step is the choice of antivirus software brand which will be worth its value and go well with your computer. It is obviously not a cakewalk to decide the parameters or test scenarios to test something like antivirus software. Viruses and worms evolve every day and additionally new malware are created constantly. In this situation, is it possible to measure the adequacy and competency of an antivirus? Most probably no. Needless to say, an antivirus can’t detect everything. However it is important to know that it detects 10%-90% of malware Windows users come across.

As computers usage became more and more frequent, antivirus solution was the first security development to protect computers from unwanted programs. Right away, malware or virus authors used intelligent technologies to develop various kinds of malicious elements to bypass the security in the computers. It took a long time for antivirus software developers to write a code to detect and eliminate viruses; until then there was nothing to provide real-time protection.

It was noticed that malware was taking control of computers through online resources such as downloads, emails, attachments, to name a few. Developers, keeping track of security vulnerabilities added email and downloads ‘scanning ability’ to security software. However, it is essential or we should say mandatory to update or upgrade the software to boost it, since new malware programs are being written on a daily basis.

Along with huge development in security software, vendors now offer many add-ons with multiple features. Signature based detection, heuristic-based detection, file emulation, rootkit detection, real-time protection etc. are great approaches to make an antivirus combat negative occurrences. Heuristic is all about looking at the behavior and other important aspects to find out if something on a computer is a malware. However, heuristic lags somewhere as a recent case has shown; that some antivirus software would flag themselves as well as Windows files or folders as malware, where heuristic seems a bit unrealistic.

There is a misconception that security software detects almost all negatively affecting stuff. The fact is that there has always been a big competition between malware authors and security software vendors who claim to offer the products providing 100% security. Malware expert of Comodo, David Perry in a recent presentation said that between 200,000 and 300,000 viruses are being discovered everyday, which are developed using kits and take unbelievably short time to propagate among computers across networks. Brian Krebs published statistics stating that antivirus software is able to detect 25% of malware targeted at users every day.

A researcher, Soufiane Tahiri who specializes in reverse code engineering and software security at Infosec Institute found out that it is simple to avoid today’s security. His research was executed by writing a small code in assembly language to create malware. Unfortunately, this code avoided or ignored the five well-known antivirus software.

Thus, an antivirus does not work against strong malware, rather is good for the most basic viruses or malware. However, experts and researchers are very well aware of this truth that an antivirus does not create miracles. Single security software does not offer integrated security rather, layered security including intrusion detection, firewalls, trained configuration management team, and prevention systems need to be included.

Help and Support

Users might come across piles of technical issues with the antivirus software on their computer if don’t use it cautiously or correctly. Well, Antivirus Support can be taken from SupportMart. Our experts are available 24/7 online and at phone to help you out.

Summary

An antivirus program is not worth spending money especially for enterprise solutions. Antivirus software, a single program cannot offer complete security against heavy malware built on strong technologies. As researchers’ reports indicate that not a single program is enough, which in turn fails in identifying, and blocking tough viruses.  One can also go for third party Virus Scan and Removal services to keep their computer clean.

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SupportMart Techncial Services has written 220 post in this blog.

SupportMart offers on-demand technical support for computers, software, Windows OS, antivirus, and peripherals of almost every brand. Its famous services are Computer Support, Laptop Support, Antivirus Support, and online Virus Removal Support. It even offers third party Support for Microsoft, Norton, Dell, HP, etc.

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