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Malware And Antivirus Software |
by:
Joel Walsh |
Warning: most antivirus programs will not protect you against all forms of malignant software (often called "malware") on their own. Find out how to protect yourself.
Sure, your antivirus software will protect you against viruses. It will probably even dogood job against worms. But what Trojans, exploits, backdoors, spyware anddozen other nasty software parasites?
Malware and Antivirus Software:History
The war on computer viruses has led toarms race betweendesigners of antivirus software anddesigners of viruses (you did not think viruses just created themselves did you?). Some years ago, virus designers responded to ever more successful antivirus software by creatingdescendents of viruses, worms, which did not infect files but rather installed themselves directly onhard drive, making them harder to detect.
The arms race has since led tototal of at least eleven distinct types of what is now called malware,neologism meaning bad (as in malignant rather than shoddy) software. According to Wikipedia, these eleven types of malware are:
one. Virus
two. Worm
three. Wabbit
four. Trojan
five. Backdoor
six. Spyware
seven. Exploit
eight. Rootkit
nine. Key Logger
onezero. Dialer
oneone. URL injection
There'stwelfth kind of malware: adware, which Wikipedia considers simply to besubset of spyware.
Why Antivirus Software Isn't Enough for Malware
As you can see, makers of antivirus software have their work cut out for them if they're going to keep every instance of malware off your system. Asresult, antivirus software makers have often had to pick their battles. Adware, whose makers often claim they are doing nothing illegal or even questionable, often gets treated more lightly.
Even when antivirus software makers do come out withproduct that fights all twelve or so kinds of malware, responding to each new instance of malware to come onmarket is not easy. Firstmalware has to be identified, which means someone's computer, and probably tens of thousands of computers, will be infected first. Then,malware has to be dissected. Thenremoval program andfilter must both be written. Thenremoval program and filter must be tested to make sure they work, and that they do not interfere with any other functions ofantivirus software orcomputer itself. Whenfix forvirus is out, it then has to be loaded intoantivirus software update and transmitted to every single computer worldwide that hasantivirus software installed.
The speed with which antivirus software makers are able to deliver updates for newly discovered malware would impress even Santa Claus. Yet there's stillcrucial window of one tofew days between whennew malware has reachedcritical mass of thousands of computers, and whenupdate is released. If your antivirus software is not set to check for updates automatically every hour or so, that window opens even wider.
Practically speaking, then, you're better off having more than one line of defense against malware. Even if two different anti-malware programs utilizeexact same database, there might becrucial difference inspeed of getting updates. It makes sense to back up your antivirus software with anti-spyware software. When you consider that dedicated anti-spyware software developers make protection againstnon-virus forms of malware their stock-in-trade, you can see why anti-spyware software is so essential. In fact, you should strongly consider having two anti-spyware programs running on your computer at all times, sincegap in updates between two anti-spyware programs can be even longer than for two antivirus programs.
After all, withdozen kinds of malware out there, shouldn't you at least have two pieces of software to fight them?
Aboutauthor:
Joel Walsh writes for http://www.spyware-refuge.comon how to remove 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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