Anti – malware software

Antimalware is a type of software program created to protect information technology (IT) systems and individual computers from malicious software, or malware. Antimalware programs scan a computer system to prevent, detect and remove malware.

Antimalware software uses three strategies to protect systems from malicious software: signature-based detection, behavior-based detection and sandboxing.

1. Signature-based malware detection

Signature-based malware detection uses a set of known software components and their digital signatures to identify new malicious software. Software vendors develop signatures to detect specific malicious software. The signatures are used to identify previously identified malicious software of the same type and to flag the new software as malware. This approach is useful for common types of malware, such as keyloggers and adware, which share many of the same characteristics.

2. Behavior-based malware detection

Behavior-based malware detection helps computer security professionals more quickly identify, block and eradicate malware by using an active approach to malware analysis. Behavior-based malware detection works by identifying malicious software by examining how it behaves rather than what it looks like. Behavior-based malware detection is designed to replace signature-based malware detection. It is sometimes powered by machine learning algorithms.

3. Sandboxing

Sandboxing is a security feature that can be used in antimalware to isolate potentially malicious files from the rest of the system. Sandboxing is often used as a method to filter out potentially malicious files and remove them before they have had a chance to do damage.

For example, when opening a file from an unknown email attachment, the sandbox will run the file in a virtual environment and only grant it access to a limited set of resources, such as a temporary folder, the internet and a virtual keyboard. If the file tries to access other programs or settings, it will be blocked, and the sandbox has the ability to terminate it.

Uses of antimalware

Antimalware can help prevent malware attacks by scanning all incoming data to prevent malware from being installed and infecting a computer. Antimalware programs can also detect advanced forms of malware and offer protection against ransomware attacks.

Antimalware programs can help in the following ways:

• prevent users of from visiting websites known for containing malware;
• prevent malware from spreading to other computers in a computer system;
• provide insight into the number of infections and the time required for their removal; and
• provide insight into how the malware compromised the device or network.