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All Just about Computer VirusMalware And Antivirus Software
by:
Joel Walsh
Warning: most antivirus programs wish not protect you against all forms of malignant software system (often called "malware") on their own. Find out how to protect yourself.
Sure, your antivirus software system wish protect you against viruses. It wish probably even as do a nice job against worms. But what Trojans, exploits, backdoors, spyware and the dozen another nasty software system parasites?
Malware and Antivirus Software: a History
The war on computer viruses has led to an arms race between the designers of antivirus software system and the designers of viruses (you didn't think viruses just created themselves did you?). Several years ago, virus designers responded to ever much booming antivirus software system by creating the descendents of viruses, worms, which did not infect files but rather installed themselves directly on the hard drive, devising them harder to detect.
The arms race has since led to a total of at least eleven distinct types of what is now called malware, a neologism meaning bad (as in malignant rather than shoddy) software. According to Wikipedia, these eleven types of malware are:
1. Virus
2. Worm
3. Wabbit
4. Trojan
5. Backdoor
6. Spyware
7. Exploit
8. Rootkit
9. Key Lumber-man
10. Dialer
11. URL injection
There's a twelfth kind of malware: adware, which Wikipedia considers just to be a set
of spyware.
Why Antivirus Software system Isn't Enough for Malware
As you can see, makers of antivirus software system have their activity cut out for them if they're going to support every instance of malware off your system. As a result, antivirus software system makers have often had to pick their battles. Adware, whose makers often claim they are doing nothing amerciable or even as questionable, often gets treated much lightly.
Even once
antivirus software system makers do move out with a product that fights all twelve or so kinds of malware, responding to each new instance of malware to move on the market isn't easy. 1st the malware has to be identified, which means someone's computer, and probably tens of thousands of computers, wish be infected first. Then, the malware has to be dissected. Then a removal program and a filter must some
be written. Then the removal program and filter must be tested to do sure they work, and that they don't interfere with any another functions of the antivirus software system or the computer itself. Once
a fix for the virus is out, it then has to be loaded into an antivirus software system update and transmitted to every single computer global that has the antivirus software system installed.
The speed with which antivirus software system makers are able to deliver updates for recently discovered malware would-be impress even as Santa Claus. Yet there's still a crucial window of one to a few days between once
the new malware has reached a critical mass of thousands of computers, and once
the update is released. If your antivirus software system is not set to check for updates mechanically
every hour or so, that window opens even as wider.
Practically speaking, then, you're better off having much than one line of defense against malware. Even as if two some anti-malware programs utilize the exact same database, there mightiness be a crucial difference in the speed of acquiring updates. It does sense to back up your antivirus software system with anti-spyware software. Once
you consider that dedicated anti-spyware software system developers do protection against the non-virus forms of malware their stock-in-trade, you can see why anti-spyware software system is so essential. In fact, you should powerfully
consider having two anti-spyware programs running on your computer at all times, since the gap in updates between two anti-spyware programs can be even as longer than for two antivirus programs.
After all, with a dozen kinds of malware out there, shouldn't you at least have two pieces of software system to fight them?
Just about the author:
Joel Walsh writes for http://www.spyware-refuge.comon how to move out spyware: http://www.spyware-refuge.com?spyware adware blocker [Publish this article on your website! Requirement: live link for above URL/web address w/ link text/anchor text: "spyware adware blocker" OR leave this bracketed message intact.]
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