Review Antivirus Software

In the virus dictionary approach, when the antivirus software looks at a file, it refers to a dictionary of known viruses that the authors of the antivirus software have identified. If a piece of code in the file matches any virus identified in the dictionary, then the antivirus software can take one of the following actions:

1. attempt to repair the file by removing the virus itself from the file
2. quarantine the file (such that the file remains inaccessible to other programs and its virus can no longer spread)
3. delete the infected file

To achieve consistent success in the medium and long term, the virus dictionary approach requires periodic (generally online) downloads of updated virus dictionary entries. As civically minded and technically inclined users identify new viruses "in the wild", they can send their infected files to the authors of antivirus software, who then include information about the new viruses in their dictionaries.

Dictionary-based antivirus software typically examines files when the computer's operating system creates, opens, closes or e-mails them. In this way it can detect a known virus immediately upon receipt. Note too that a System Administrator can typically schedule the antivirus software to examine (scan) all files on the computer's hard disk on a regular basis.

Although the dictionary approach can effectively contain virus outbreaks in the right circumstances, virus authors have tried to stay a step ahead of such software by writing "oligomorphic", "polymorphic" and more recently "metamorphic" viruses, which encrypt parts of themselves or otherwise modify themselves as a method of disguise, so as to not match the virus's signature in the dictionary.

Suspicious behavior

The suspicious behavior approach, by contrast, doesn't attempt to identify known viruses, but instead monitors the behavior of all programs. If one program tries to write data to an executable program, for example, the antivirus software can flag this suspicious behavior, alert a user and ask what to do.

Unlike the dictionary approach, the suspicious behavior approach therefore provides protection against brand-new viruses that do not yet exist in any virus dictionaries. However, it can also sound a large number of false positives, and users probably become desensitized to all the warnings. If the user clicks "Accept" on every such warning, then the antivirus software obviously gives no benefit to that user. This problem has worsened since 1997[citation needed], since many more nonmalicious program designs came to modify other .exe files without regard to this false positive issue. Thus, most modern antivirus software uses this technique less and less.

Example AntiVirus Software

ZoneAlarm Antivirus
Unsurpassed virus cleansing and prevention
Purge tenacious viruses and permanently inoculate your PC. ZoneAlarm's industry-leading firewall technology and groundbreaking antivirus engine ensure your computer is completely problem-free and healthy.
- Stops viruses before they infect you
- Continually and constantly protects your PC
- Simple to install and run

History

There are competing claims for the innovator of the first antivirus product. Perhaps the first publicly known neutralization of a wild PC virus was performed by European Bernt Fix (also Bernd) in early 1987. Fix neutralized an infection of the Vienna virus.[7] [8] First edition of Polish antivirus software mks_vir started in 1987. Program was only available in Polish language version. Autumn 1988 also saw antivirus software Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit released by Briton Alan Solomon. By December 1990 the market had matured to the point of nineteen separate antivirus products being on sale including Norton AntiVirus and ViruScan from McAfee.

Peter Tippett made a number of contributions to the budding field of virus detection.[citation needed] He was an emergency room doctor who also ran a computer software company. He had read an article about the Lehigh virus and questioned whether they would have similar characteristics to biological viruses that attack organisms. From an epidemiological viewpoint, he was able to determine how these viruses were affecting systems within the computer (the boot-sector was affected by the Brain virus, the .com files were affected by the Lehigh virus, and both .com and .exe files were affected by the Jerusalem virus). Tippett’s company Certus International Corp. then began to create anti-virus software programs. The company was sold in 1992 to Symantec Corp, and Tippett went to work for them, incorporating the software he had developed into Symantec’s product, Norton AntiVirus

Proprietary
AhnLab V3 Internet Security
avast!
Avira
AVG Anti-Virus
BitDefender
BullGuard
Cisco Security Agent
Dr.Web
FRISK Software International
F-Secure
Kaspersky Anti-Virus
LinuxShield
McAfee VirusScan
NOD32
Norman ASA
Norton AntiVirus
Panda Security
PC Tools AntiVirus
Prevx
Quick Heal Antivirus
Rising AntiVirus
Sophos Anti-Virus
Trend Micro Antivirus
Vba32 AntiVirus
Virus Chaser
Windows Live OneCare
ZoneAlarm

Freeware
AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
AOL Active Virus Shield (no longer available via AOL)
AVG Anti-Virus Free
avast! Home
BitDefender Free Edition
Comodo AntiVirus
PC Tools AntiVirus

Open source
Clam AntiVirus
ClamWin
OpenAntiVirus
Winpoochdavis

Abandonware
Central Point Anti-Virus (acquired by Symantec)
Eliashim (now eSafe)
The Antidote
Thunderbyte (now Norman)