A well-designed antivirus program can stop malware infections and remove threats that are currently in place or attacks on individual computer devices, networks or entire IT systems. The software scans websites, files, installed software as well as user data for malware types that are known to exist They also track day-to-day program behavior to detect potential threats and alert the user.
Most antivirus protections offer multiple scanning options, including on-access, scheduled and quick scans. On-access scans seek out malicious code in directories for the operating system, common file areas and other common locations on startup. Scheduled scans let you set up a daily monthly or weekly schedule for running a complete system scan at a specified time. Scans that are quick usually last just less than a minute and examine commonly utilized areas on your computer, including temporary files or the directory of your operating system.
Certain programs employ heuristics that look for malware, and then look for similar patterns and tendencies. This is a more sophisticated kind of virus detection than signature-based detection and can detect malware that other programs do not detect. These advanced forms of antivirus detection may not work as well for small businesses, as they are often prone to false positives–identifying secure parts of files and programs as potentially harmful.
As the business world is becoming more interconnected, hackers are targeting businesses with more frequency to score caches of consumer data or to create some name for themselves with hacktivism (disrupting professional systems due to social or political reasons). All businesses should have antivirus protection in place to shield them from cyberattacks.