What Anti-Virus Software Does and Doesn’t Do

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We want to wish all fathers a very happy Father’s Day. Your love and service to your family are so valuable, and help make the world a better place.

What Anti-Virus Software Does and Doesn’t Do
You have an anti-virus software program, such as Norton, McAfee, or Webroot loaded on your computer. You’re safe from malware, (malicious emails, software, and websites), right? in a word, NO.

These days, the goal of most of the malware that targets individuals and small businesses is to steal your identity or to hold your files hostage (ransomware), in order to convince you to pay ransom to get your files back. In short, it’s mostly about the money.

Anti-Virus software attempts to protect your computer from malware. Different anti-virus software packages offer some or all of these defenses.
1. Signature-Based Protection. This protection stops known malicious files and websites. This protection is only effective against previously identified threats.
2. Heuristic Protection. This protection attempts to block previously unknown malware by tracking its effect on your computer and shutting down malware if it finds suspicious behavior.
3. Sandboxing. This protection runs the suspicious software in a specially protected area of your computer and shuts malicious software down if it finds suspicious activity.
Heuristics and Sandboxing sound sexy, but they only offer limited protection.

Here are a few common scenarios and how anti-virus software attempts to protect you. Open an email. If your anti-virus software has an email scanning option, the anti-virus software will scan the file for unsafe attachments and links to malicious websites. It will try to block these. Click on a link in an email. If your anti-virus software includes browser protection, it will try to block you from going to malicious websites. Click on an attachment. Your anti-virus software will scan the attachment and attempt to block it if it’s malware. Open a website. If your anti-virus software includes browser protection, it will try to block you from going to malicious websites. Click on links inside that site. If your anti-virus software includes browser protection, it will try to block you from going to malicious websites. What Anti-Virus Software Won’t Protect Against
Since there are literally millions of new malware programs released yearly, the anti-virus vendors are playing catch up to newly-found vulnerabilities and can’t protect you from everything. The bad guys are smart and do their best to hide from anti-virus software.

The Safest Course Of Action Is Vigilance
1. Don’t assume emails from friends or colleagues are safe. They could have been hacked and the hacker is pretending to be them.
2. Don’t click links or open attachments in emails. Links and attachments may look legitimate but can hold malware. For links, open your browser and manually type the website address into the address bar. For attachments, verify with the sender that they sent you the attachment.
3. Don’t respond to pop-up messages on your screen that says you need to call some number to fix your computer. They are virtually all scams. In the vast majority of cases, you can simply restart your computer and the message will not return. If it does return, contact a trusted technical support company (us!).
4. Back up your files. If you have copies of your files, they can easily be restored in case your computer gets infected with ransomware. Ideally, have a local backup and a cloud backup.
5. Use strong passwords, especially for email, shopping, and financial websites. Use a unique password for each website.
6. Keep your operating system and all other software updated. Malware often exploits vulnerabilities in out-of-date software.

Resources
U.S. News Article: How Does Antivirus Software Work?  https://bit.ly/3gIORCu
PC Magazine Article: The Best Antivirus Protection for 2021 https://bit.ly/3cSgUwK

In the next newsletter, we’ll discuss what firewalls and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are.

Thank you for being part of our family. We are fortunate to serve you.

Betina, Ryan, & Edward