Anti-malware Software
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Anti-malware Software
Malware is a collective term used to refer to malicious software such as viruses, Trojan horses, worms, etc. An anti-malware is a software program developed to protect computer devices from these malicious files. Most people would mistake anti-malware for an antivirus, which is not the case. Antivirus protects the computer from a virus while anti-malware covers a broader aspect as it protects against various malicious files, including viruses.
Anti-malware software applies several techniques to combat malware. These techniques include; signature-based detection, behavior-based detection, sandboxing, and heuristics-based detection.
Signature-based techniques analyze file signatures and then compare them with already known malware signatures in the database. The downside of this technique is that it can only flag known malware signatures.
The sandboxing technique uses a sandbox which acts as an isolating environment. The sandbox isolates the program and monitors how it runs and detects if there is the presence of any suspicious files. Although its effectiveness, sandboxing can be time-consuming since it requires running all the files through a sandbox.
Behavioral detection is another technique used in malware detection by monitoring the characteristics of the malware. It can monitor the behavior and analyze every code of the program for suspicious activity before it is executed.
Heuristic-based scanning uses algorithms/probability in identifying unknown computer malware by analyzing code for suspicious characteristics. However, due to the analysis being an educated guess, the anti-malware software may flag a false positive.
Anti-malware software has been proven to be a useful software that prevents computer devices from being vulnerable to malware attacks using various techniques that work when combined.
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