Antivirus

                                            Antivirus

Is protective software designed to defend your computer against malicious software. Malicious software or "malware" includes: viruses, Trojans, keyloggers, hijackers, dialers, and other code that vandalizes or steals your computer contents. In order to be an effective defense, your antivirus software needs to run in the background at all times, and should be kept updated so it recognizes new versions of malicious software.
                                                             What are the threats?
The dominant threat to your computer in this age is called “malware”.   Malware is short for “malicious software” and is the all-encompassing term to describe computer viruses, trojan horses (or “trojans”), worms, spyware, and other “bad” software.  Merriam-Webster even defines malware as “software designed to interfere with a computer’s normal functioning”.
Viruses, trojans, and worms are very similar in that they are designed to disrupt, and sometimes even destroy, files and programs on your computer.  In many cases, the infected computer becomes  inoperable and requires it’s hard drive to be wiped clean of any data and have the entire operating system (typically Microsoft Windows) reinstalled back to its original out of the box state.
In the 21st century, spyware is the most common form of malware that computer users will encounter. Spyware, while not inherently destructive in nature, is obnoxious to deal with and can definitely cause a headache or two!  Spyware is software that sneaks onto your computer usually by fooling you into thinking it is something you want.  It comes in the form of clickable pop up ads, “piggybacking” on software that you actually do want, or pose as legitimate “security” software; just to name a few.  Spyware’s primary purpose is generally marketing or promoting a product or service typically found on a website.  So in most cases, you’ll find that spyware causes a lot of annoying popups, blatantly redirects your web browser to one or more specific websites (oftentimes pornographic sites.), and/or installs itself on your computer as a seemingly harmless “limited” or “trial” software package in the hopes that you’ll purchase the full version or upgrade.  A lot of spyware also sends your browsing history to a specified location on the internet to specifically “target” the popups it forces onto your machine in hopes to cater to what it feels your interests are.  Luckily, spyware doesn’t usually force you to the point of having to wipe your hard drive clean (though it IS possible), but it is a time-consuming nuisance to get rid of.
Apart from the time, and possibly money, you will have to spend remedying a malware infestation; you may run into issues with your data being lost.  If your computer is inoperable, then as mentioned above, you may need to wipe your entire hard drive of its data to completely and effectively remove the infection.  While this will almost definitely rid your computer of the malware, all of your files and programs will be gone.  So if you do not periodically back up your important files then everything you had saved on the compromised machine will be gone!
                                                              What can be done?
Since the early 90s, certain software vendors have been designing Antivirus software and making it available to computer users.  The purpose of antivirus software is not only to remove malware infections, but to actually prevent the infections from occurring in the first place.   Imagine unintentionally or unknowingly performing an action that would place malware on your computer and having your antivirus warn you and block it.  The couple of minutes spent avoiding the infection is significantly less problematic than the hours you’d spend fixing the issue.
In the last several years antivirus manufacturers have also been offering entire security suites that include virus prevention, spyware prevention, and firewall software.  Firewalls, simply put, are software that monitor, detect, and warn you of unusual traffic to and from your computer via a network or the internet. This comes in handy especially with worms, trojans, and spyware.  Worms are called worms because they spread through the internet from computer to computer.  Trojans open up a “backdoor” to your computer for unauthorized users to gain access.  And as mentioned above, spyware sends your browsing history out to the internet.  Usually, firewall software can detect these types of network activity and suspend it until you decide whether or not to allow it.