Security Protection of anti-virus softwares

In order to protect your computers and servers from viruses, it is essential that you have virus-protection software installed. Virus-protection software, is software that knows about the different viruses that exist and can either remove the virus or remove files from your system that contain viruses.

There are different types of anti-virus softwares are available in the market. Each antivirus software product has its own benefits and features. Each of the products is very competitive and should have similar features available. The more important features of antivirus softwares are following.

Scheduled virus scans: Virus scans can be scheduled to perform automatically on the system. This is a great feature because you can have the virus-scanning software scan the system in the middle of the night, when the system is not being used. You may also choose what happens when a virus is found attempt to remove the virus from the file, place the file in a quarantine area, or delete the file. The benefit of a scheduled scan is that you do not have to physically perform the scan yourself.

Real-time protection: Real-time protection is the idea that the virus protection software runs in memory all the time and scans any file that you open. The benefit of real-time protection is that you are protected from viruses between the scan times.

Scheduled definition updates: Virus definitions are what the virus protection software uses to maintain its knowledge of what viruses are out there. The virus-protection software should have a feature that allows the definitions to be downloaded from the antivirus vendor’s site.

Scanning e-mail: Many versions of virus-protection software today support scanning e-mail messages as they arrive in your inbox. This is typical of virus-protection software that runs on an e-mail server.

Malicious Software

There are many types of malicious software, outside of your typical viruses, attack systems every day. The following sections outline other types of malicious software but understand that they are all considered types of viruses.

Trojan horses
Trojan horses virus are special designed and bundled in an exe file, when some one click on this exe file then it executes the virus program and takes control of the system. For example, NetBus is a very popular Trojan virus that ships as a file called patch.exe. A hacker e-mails the file called patch.exe and explains in the e-mail that this is a security patch you need to apply to make sure your system is secure. Unfortunately, patch.exe is the security hole! When you run patch.exe, it opens your system up to the hacker by opening a port so that the hacker can connect to the port at any time and control your system. Trojan viruses are normally loaded on your system by the hacker tricking you into running the program on the system. You can remove the Trojan with virus-protection software.

Worms
A worm is a self-replicating virus. By self-replicating, I mean that the worm doesn't need to be activated by the user opening the file. A worm is a virus that runs on a system and also tries to infect other systems on the network. The Nimda virus is an example of a worm virus. Worms are loaded on your system by connecting to your system from across the Internet. The worm is usually designed to infect the system by connecting through a specific piece of software.

Spyware and adware
Spyware is software that loads on your system and then monitors your Internet activity, while adware is software that creates pop-ups from time to time advertising a particular product or service. Both of these types of viruses infect your system when you surf the wrong Internet site. Spyware and adware have become a huge negative result of the Internet, so a number of products are available to eliminate spyware and adware. The most popular products used to eliminate spyware and adware are

• Spybot Search & Destroy
• Ad-Aware
• Microsoft’s Windows Defender

Security Check List

Security Checklist for Your Computer

Use this checklist to make sure you are taking advantage of all the ways that Windows can help keep your computer as secure and safe as possible.

Action Center

Use Action Center to make sure your firewall is on, your antivirus software is up to date, and your computer is set up to install updates automatically.

Windows Defender

Use Windows Defender to prevent malicious software, like spyware or viruses, from infecting your computer.

User Account Control

User Account Control prompts you for your permission before installing software or opening certain kinds of programs that could potentially harm your computer or make it vulnerable to security threats.

Backup and Restore

It's important to back up your files and settings regularly so that if you get a virus or have any kind of hardware failure, you can recover your files.

Windows Update

Set Windows Update to download and install the latest updates for your computer automatically.


Windows Firewall

Use Windows Firewall to help prevent hackers and unwanted software from gaining access to your computer through the Internet.