A good antivirus program guards against malware infections and eliminates current threats, or attacks on specific computers, networks or entire IT systems. The programs scan websites, files, installed software and user data for known malware types. They also monitor the program’s behavior in order to identify possible threats.
The majority of antivirus protections provide a variety of scanning techniques such as scheduled, quick and on-access scans. On-access scans look through directories in the operating system as well as common file locations to look for malicious code at the time of startup. Scheduled scans let you set an everyday schedule, a weekly schedule or a monthly one to run a full system scan at a certain time. Quick scans typically last a few minutes long and examine commonly used areas of your computer such as temporary files as well as the operating system directory, or memory.
Some programs use heuristic detection to look for malware by looking for similar trends or patterns. This is a more sophisticated method of virus detection than signature-based detection and it can catch malware that other programs fail to detect. These advanced forms of antivirus detection may not work as well for small businesses, as they are often prone to false positives–identifying secure parts of files and programs as potentially harmful.
Hackers are increasingly targeting businesses as the business world is becoming more interconnected. They do this in order to collect information from consumers or to build a reputation through hacktivism. This is when hackers disrupt professional systems to achieve social or political goals. All businesses must have antivirus protection to guard them from cyberattacks.
