This method of working of the antivirus program resembles with the working of our immune system. Every antivirus program is provided with a dictionary which contains the signatures of currently known antivirus. Antivirus programs scan your computer for finding patterns for infections and digital disease causing programs. They check the resulted patterns against the patterns (signature) of known malware softwares available in their dictionary. If any match is found, the antivirus tries to neutralize it.
This working procedure of the antivirus is totally dependent on its dictionary, i.e., it can protect only from what it recognises as harmful. Thus, there exists a problem that new malware programs are developing day to day. In order to keep up with these malware programs, antivirus needs to be updated. Your computer is vulnerable in the time period between the identification of a new malware program and the updating of your antivirus dictionary.
That’s why a new method of behaviour analysis has been introduced in modern antivirus programs so that a computer system can be saved from new malware programs until the antivirus dictionary gets updated successfully.
Behaviour Analysis: This method is mainly based on the behaviour of the unknown malware programs. When any program acts suspiciously, such as trying to change the registry settings, changing operating system updates, altering antivirus protocol, or modifying firewall settings, a message is presented to the user to allow or deny the program access. Computer users should always be aware of the software raising these exceptions.
The advantage of this method is that it provides protection against new malware programs that cannot be traced using its dictionary. Along with this advantage, there are also some disadvantages, like the generation of a large number of false warnings. This approach leaves the user in a state of confusion.
The computer system may be unsure about what to allow or not allow, and these iterative messages make the user desensitized to all these warnings. This results in the acceptance of every message and leaves the system open for attacks and infections. Due to these reasons, the antivirus field is one of the main research areas for computer programmers.
Heuristic Analysis: This is used to detect the malware programs which result from the mutation or refinement of existing programs by other attackers.
Real-time Scanning: This method is provided by modern antivirus to protect against the infiltration of malware programs when data is loaded into the computer's active memory, i.e., during downloading, opening emails, or browsing the web.
Thus, the latest antivirus uses all these scanning methods to give your system round-the-clock protection.
