Antivirus

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Antivirus refers to a computer software or program that attempts to identify and eliminate threatening, dangerous or malicious software. Upon its initially release, Antivirus software was designed exclusively to fight computer viruses, however as threats evolve and become harder to define, Antivirus has had to evolve as well. Now, modern Antivirus is designed to combat a broad range of threats - phishing attacks, trojan horses, worms and other malware to name a few.
Antivirus software typically uses a number of different approaches to accomplish this:

• Examining or scanning files to search for known viruses matching definitions in a previously generated virus dictionary
• Identifying any kind of suspicious behavior from any computer program which might indicate infection
• Referred to as, heuristic analysis, this approach may include data captures and port monitoring, among other strategies

Most commercial antivirus software uses each of these approaches, with an emphasis on the virus dictionary approach. Some people claim that a Firewall program performs the functions of an Anti-Virus, however they would be mistaken.

For more information on antivirus, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus