Review your Anti-Virus Software to Protect your Systems

It is widely agreed that the threat of cybercrime has increased dramatically over recent years, with businesses and individuals falling victim to online attacks more and more.

Despite this, many people have still not taken the simple step of installing antivirus software to help protect their personal data and systems.

Getting started with Antivirus software

The core purpose of antivirus programs is to detect malicious software on your machine and to safely incubate it, before permanently deleting it. But depending on the specific application they can also protect you in other ways such as detecting and blocking suspicious URLs when you are browsing the internet.

The software works by constantly running in the background, scanning files and applications. Before you open a program your antivirus application will check it against a list of known viruses to see if it is safe to open.

If the application looks in anyway suspicious you will usually get a pop up warning you of the potential virus and asking you to confirm if you would still like to open it.

Most applications will cover the full range of harmful code such as malware, ransomware and other types of computer virus.

Popular Antivirus solutions

There are many different antivirus solutions available today, including a wide range of free tools that you can easily download.

Some of the most popular antivirus tools include:

• Windows Defender – Previously known as Microsoft Security Essentials, this software is built into Windows 10 and is therefore the default choice for many. It is free to install, with free updates.
• Norton – Norton offers a range of paid antivirus packages, starting from single machines and scaling up to many different devices. Many of the packages also give you access to an expert from Norton to help protect your devices.
• McAfee – McAfee is generally regarded as the world’s largest security technology company, offering solutions to both individuals and businesses. They offer a wide range of packages on an annual subscription basis, which also include a money back guarantee if they fail to remove viruses from your machine.

This software is simple to install and set up for individual users, but business users would benefit from speaking to IT professionals for guidance on the most comprehensive and cost effective way to protect their systems as part of a company wide security strategy.

Ensure that your antivirus software is up to date

Simply installing antivirus software in the first place is not enough, in order to get the best results and ensure you are fully protected it is essential that you update your software regularly. Cyber criminals are constantly looking of new ways to exploit systems, and likewise software providers are always looking for ways to make their solutions more secure.

Most antivirus packages will automatically look for updates each time you connect to the internet, but you will sometimes be prompted to restart your machine in order for the changes to take effect.