Types of antivirus programs. Viruses and antivirus programs

Every day, computers and laptops are exposed to all kinds of malicious software attacks. This, as well as ways to combat this problem has been said a lot. However, such questions are received every day, and their number not only does not decrease, but on the contrary increases. Most likely, this is due to the fact that more and more people are mastering computers. Therefore, today we will talk about what kinds of anti-virus programs there are. After all, they prevent the "enemy" software from getting to your data, and also neutralize everything that has already been able to penetrate your digital information. Today, probably, only a madman uses his computer without having such protection. It is enough to access the Internet once or insert a third-party storage medium in order to expose your data to the risk of destruction.

Occurrence

So, at once I will note that all existing types of viruses and anti-virus programs did not appear immediately. They appeared and improved over the years, and the so-called viruses appeared first, after which the developers produced the appropriate software to combat electronic pests.

Complexes

Before we begin to disassemble the types of anti-virus programs, it is worth saying that today it will be hard to meet this or that kind of software in its pure form. This is due to the fact that nowadays, due to a huge number of different malicious objects, developers have to create their own product in such a way that it can monitor and neutralize all types of malicious software. Therefore, these products consist of several components.

Scanner

The first on the list is the scanner. It is the main element of modern software. All anti-virus programs for Windows 7, Windows 8 and so on have this component in their composition. Roughly speaking, this element performs passive protection of your computer. When you run it, or it will be done by the order, the scanner will scan the specified areas. It can be either one file or several hard disks.

How will the detection of malicious objects occur? Everything is very simple. The scanner will perform a search and comparison of the software virus code. Examples of such codes are contained in pre-defined signatures (sets of a characteristic sequence of bytes for all known viruses).

Although today all the main types of anti-virus programs are combined in one product, it is worth saying a few words about the shortcomings of an individual scanner. First, it is defenseless against all viruses that do not have a permanent code, and which can be modified while preserving all of their basic functions. Secondly, this component is not able to resist the varieties of the same viruses, as a result of which the user is forced to constantly update the anti-virus database. Well, the main drawback of this tool is, of course, the lack of ability to detect previously unknown and new viruses. And such an opportunity is quite in demand today, especially when it comes to the new threat of infecting thousands of computers with e-mail. And such infection can be realized all over the world in just a few hours.

Monitor

We continue to understand what kinds of antivirus programs are available. Next on our list are monitors. It is from this element along with scanners that basic protection of laptops and computers is formed. Based on all available signatures, all current processes are checked in real time. Whether viewing the file or launching it, a preliminary check before performing any actions will be performed.

There are monitors designed for the mail client (program for processing and viewing e-mail), file monitors, as well as monitors for special applications. Basically, the latter are provided with modules for checking the files "Microsoft Office". The advantage of this component is the ability to detect malicious software at the very first stage of activity.

Examiner

But this is not all kinds of antivirus programs. The next type is the auditors. They are able to store in a certain database all the data about the state at any time of the critical system areas for work. In the future, the current files are simply compared with those that were registered earlier. Thus, it makes it possible to identify all suspicious changes, if the latter occurred.

The advantages of these tools include low hardware requirements, as well as high speed. And the whole point is that auditors do not need any antivirus databases at all. After all, the difference and perception are made solely by the principle of invariability of the source files. All this makes it possible to efficiently restore the system if it was damaged by the activity of certain malicious modules.

But, as you probably already guessed, there are some drawbacks. They consist in the impossibility of quickly reacting to the fact of the virus in the computer system. Also, new files are excluded during the scan. This is most often used by viruses, which infect exclusively newly created files.

Vaccines

Concluding our topic "viruses and antivirus programs," I want to talk about the latest form of security software. These are vaccines, or they are also called immunizers. This software simulates the infection of your files with certain viruses. As a result, if an "invasion" of this malicious software occurs on your computer, the viruses "will find" that the data is already infected and simply will not infect them.

It will be fair to say that this method is not effective to protect the system. This is due to the fact that some viruses simply do not check whether the system is infected or not. Also, the methods of such testing in viral agents can vary significantly. Therefore, in our time, this option is practically not used.

On this our topic "viruses and antivirus programs" can be considered considered.