A well-designed antivirus program helps prevent malware infections and eliminates current threats or attacks against specific computer devices, networks or entire IT systems. The antivirus programs scan websites, files, installed software and user data to search for known malware types and monitor day-to-day program behavior to detect potential threats and alert users.
Most antivirus protections offer different scanning methods including scheduled, fast and on-access scans. On-access scans check directories that are part of the operating system as well as common file areas to search for malicious code at the time of starting. Scheduled scans let you create a daily, monthly or weekly schedule to run a complete system scan at a certain time. Scans that are quick usually last just a few moments and examine commonly utilized areas of your computer, such as temporary files or the directory of your operating system.
Certain programs employ heuristics that scan for malware, looking for patterns and tendencies that are similar to those found in other programs. This is a more sophisticated form of virus detection compared to signature-based detection, and can detect malware that other programs do not. These advanced forms of antivirus detection may not work as well for small businesses, as they are often prone to false positives–identifying secure parts of files and programs as potentially harmful.
As the business world becomes increasingly interconnected hackers are focusing on companies more frequently to snag caches of customer information or to make some name for themselves with hacktivism (disrupting professional systems for social or political reasons). Every business should have antivirus protection in place to shield them from cyberattacks.
