General Knowledge About Antivirus Software Computer Science Essay

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Antivirus software is a computer program used to scan and remove viruses from your computer.

There are two main approaches of detection methods that most antivirus software use: Suspicious

Behavior and Dictionary. With the first approach, the antivirus software will track down the strange

behavior of programs on your computer in order to detect if the program are infected by viruses. The

second approach is based on the virus database of the antivirus software. This strategy seems less

effective because it can only catch viruses that are known and can miss new, non-registered viruses.

2. Benefits of an antivirus software

The advantages of antivirus software are obvious as its name states. However, Matt Koble (2012) in his

article entitled The Advantages of an Antivirus states that there are many more benefits of antivirus

program that computer users may not notice. Aside from just stopping/removing viruses, most antivirus

have proved they are a comprehensive tool. They not only protect your computer and your data, but

also save your expenses and make you feel a lot safer.

Protection from Viruses

This is probably the most obvious advantage of an antivirus. As mentioned above, antivirus

software is designed to protect the computer and prevent outside threats such as Malware or Trojan

from getting inside. Those viruses can be merely annoying by displaying useless error messages, or even

destroying your valued data and preventing your computer from working. Most of these viruses operate

transparently so you will not even know that they are causing damage. In worse case, it can spread itself

to your other device through variety of methods such as email, floppy disks, CD-ROM or USB and deal

even more damage. Hence, the presence of antivirus on your computer is truly essential.

Protecting personal information

There is an apparent link between viruses and hackers. Without protection from antivirus, you can easily

experience the risk while browsing the internet. The hackers can access your personal things such as

credit card or bank account information through the viruses on your computer and possibly steal all your

money. In other case, your secret data such as photos, videos or documents can be leaked thus causing

great trouble. However you will not have to worry much about this with the firewall feature of your

antivirus software. It can block unauthorized incoming connections to your network, preventing hackers

from getting access into your computer and your life.

Cost savings

There are a lot of options for people with low salary or just want to use an antivirus software for free.

Although most of the antivirus nowadays are quite pricey, but they also offer a free edition. It is not

a problem since those freeware can protect your computer as well as a purchased antivirus does.

However it is still worth if you choose to use a subscription-based program because it can guarantee

the life of your computer much longer than those who does not use any antivirus software. According

to Bianca Dima on his article , there have been reports of companies losing millions of dollars thanks to

employees being unable to do their jobs due to computer viruses.

Convenience

Some people may think that it is uncomfortable to have a virus scanner in their old computer because

some antivirus software require a medium hardware to be able to run and they suppose it can slow

down their PC. Actually without protection from antivirus, your computer will be easily infected and the

sign of changes will be noticeable. You will be spammed by unwanted messages or other computing

tasks will take much longer than normal. After that you will definitely find the solution on the internet

and waste time trying to fix it yourself but normally it will not work. Yet with proper protection you will

simply have a notification that a virus has been detected and ask if you would like to remove it.

3. Disadvantages of Antivirus software

Although antivirus software is an important part of your computer, as reported by Rhonda McDowell

in his article What Are the Disadvantages of Antiviruses? , it still has some significant drawbacks to be

considered.

Limited Detection Techniques

As previously mentioned, most antivirus use Suspicious Behavior and Dictionary Approach to detect

viruses. Nonetheless, more viruses are becoming more and more delicate, such as the new virus called

Metamorphic virus. It often translate its own binary code into a temporary representation, editing the

temporary representation of itself and then translate the edited form back to machine code again so no

part of the virus stays the same, thus avoiding the pattern recognition of antivirus software. According

to the supervision system of BKAV, there were over 380.000 computer infected with this virus in

September, 2010 in Vietnam and there was still no way to completely remove this kind of threat. That is

one example to understand that your computer is not totally safe with even the best antivirus program.

Slows Down PC or Network

Antivirus software’s processes can use a lot of computer resources, hence reduce other task’s

performances. Rhonda also mentioned that the process of scanning may cause lag in order to protect

the server with a lot of connections from viruses. This is true because if the user does not make the

proper setting to the scan process (such as use background scanning or quick scan) it may use up almost

all the memory without calculating.

Conflicts

Some people might think about installing more than one antivirus programs to have more protection.

However this can cause trouble since some antivirus is conflicted with other in the process of scanning

thus causing damages to your computer.

4. Solutions and tips

Having just an antivirus is not enough to protect your computer against attacking viruses. Actually

there are a lot more methods to do with this field of security, and all of them are not too hard to do.

Lee Mangold in the articles Computer Security Tips states that one of the simplest things to safer your

computer is to patch all the software regularly, for example Windows Update. He said that it is essential

because the software will be fixed by the companies and viruses will not easily take advantage of it.

Another tip summited by him is that we should use a Firewall which can be enabled in Windows or

simply use that feature in the antivirus to make our browsing on the internet a lot safer. And if you

already have your own antivirus program, "remember to use the auto-update function and set up a

proper scan schedule that suits your computer" (Rick Lehtinen, Computer Security Basics). He also

mentioned that we should not open unknown emails or click on strange links without scanning them

by an antivirus software first. The last solution suggested by Michael Muchmore in the article Disaster-

Proof Your Data with Online Backup is to keep a clean backup of your data on online storage. This seems

to be the trend of the future when cloud storage become everyone’s hard disk.