Best Antivirus Software April 2021 - Best Antivirus Software

Apr 7

Anti-Phishing Software is as Important as Anti-Virus Software

Phishing is far from new. The number of phishing attacks is growing every year, and the methods of attackers are improving.

What are phishing attacks?

Phishing attacks are a type of online fraud in which cybercriminals seek to get hold of personal data – logins and passwords of social networks, mailboxes, bank accounts, and bank card numbers.

Types of phishing:

Mail. The oldest method of obtaining confidential data is through email campaigns with letters of various contents – from tempting offers to real threats. Using psychological influence, cybercriminals successfully obtain the personal data of users.
Online. It appeared much later than the mail one and is a more sophisticated way of extracting information. Since in this case, the attackers use high-quality copies of authoritative sites that require the introduction of confidential data.

That is, the user enters his username and password, or bank card details in the form, without noticing that the address has been spoofed. In this case, the merit of the anti-phishing functions of antivirus software is especially great, since they detect and block such pages even before the user has time to see them.

Also, larger cyberattacks target the devices of employees of large companies to gain control over control systems.

Why you need anti-phishing software?

The need to use anti-phishing anti-virus is due to the statements of various organizations in the field of cybersecurity about the rapid development of phishing in the world.

Of course, in most cases, the goal of cyberattacks was large firms and gaining control over their infrastructure, but the scale of the problem is understandable, and the need to combat Internet fraud is obvious.

For example, compared to 2017, the number of cyberattacks in 2018 increased by 60%.

According to the results of their observations, almost a third of office workers safely open emails from strangers, therefore, become potential victims of phishing.

Internet fraud is rampant and, as practice shows, increasing cyber literacy has not yielded tangible results.

Phishing attacks are literally a key threat to information security.

Therefore, the problem should be solved by using anti-virus software, which provides a high-level protection against phishing attacks.

Effective anti-phishing protection is implemented only in paid versions of antivirus software. Let’s take a look at three of the most popular ones.

Norton

In Norton antivirus, anti-phishing protection works in three directions at once:

Blocking phishing sites. Norton quickly detects and automatically blocks sites that are fraudulently trying to obtain personal information.
Checking links in the social media feed. In addition to sending out luring links by mail, cybercriminals now post them on the pages of the most popular Internet communities. Norton has addressed this issue by checking social media links.
Safely store usernames and passwords and protect your identity. With the use of antivirus, the threat of receiving user data during automatic input is reduced to zero.

Key benefit: Norton’s antivirus protection is available in even the most basic version of Norton Antivirus.

Kaspersky

To assess the effectiveness of Kaspersky Lab products in terms of anti-phishing protection, it is better to look at the test results of the independent organization AV-test, according to which Kaspersky Anti-Virus recognized 100% of phishing links, of which none were false.

Automatic module for checking virtual keyboards and links.
An updated anti-phishing module with a heuristic analysis function that can get detailed information about a suspicious site.
Data collection protection. A special module timely monitors and blocks resources that record usage scenarios.

Antiphishing functions are also available in all versions of Kaspersky anti-virus software, but remember that the basic package is available only to PC users and only for Windows.

Panda

In general, Panda’s antiviruses can boast of both an extended set of user settings and the availability of an anti-phishing module for all packages, even the basic one. The software is available for both PCs and mobile devices running any system.

However, in terms of anti-phishing protection, one drawback should be highlighted: when tested by an independent organization AV-test, it was Panda that showed a relatively slow performance of the anti-phishing module.

Picture Credit: Pexels

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Apr 1

Antivirus Softwares: Meaning, Definition, and Functions

Posted in Antivirus, Security, Software

Antivirus software is the most reliable and comprehensive solution for dealing with online threats. To assess their severity, consider the most common types of malware attacks.

Viruses

In wide circles, this term is applied to all malware, but viruses are only those programs that can independently enter a computer and add malicious code, or, in other words, “infect” a file, program, or the entire system. A virus infection can result in a system malfunction due to a violation of the data allocation structure or even complete removal of the operating system.

Trojans

Unlike viruses, they do not infect other programs. Trojans also do not enter a computer on their own – attackers disguise them as useful software that the user himself installs. Trojans do even more harm because, in addition to deleting systems and personal files, they can steal confidential information.

Worms

There are malicious programs that are more dangerous than viruses and Trojans due to their high speed of spread using network resources. By instantly calculating network addresses, worms penetrate other computers, create working folders on system disks, and thus lead to system freezes.

Spyware

This software is used to collect confidential information about a specific user through a total scan of the system and working folders of his computer. Spyware functions on someone else’s PC completely unnoticed, without exerting any visible load on the operating system. In addition to obtaining personal data, spyware is used to remotely control someone else’s computer.

Cryptographers

Their main goal is to penetrate a computer, gain access to personal media files and encrypt them to extort funds for their decryption.

Spam

Is a separate type of malicious attack, which is the mass mailing of financial, political, and campaign letters. Attackers use spam for a variety of purposes – from extorting a large sum of money from the addressee to a banal load on mail servers, which leads to the loss of important data.

There is another common and dangerous type of malware attack that should be considered separately.

Phishing

Phishing attacks are becoming more and more threatening over time, which is associated with:

Mail spam-sending forms by mail to fill in personal data.
Online phishing – the creation of pages copied from the original sites of social networks, online banking, payment systems.
Mobile threats – SMS distribution, similar to mail spam, to extract personal data.

How does antivirus work?

Antivirus is still the only effective anti-malware tool, providing comprehensive threat protection.

To understand how antivirus works, let’s consider the main functions of antivirus software:

Real-time threat protection. This is the basic function of all anti-virus programs, which is every-second monitoring of computer activity and timely protection against all incoming threats.
Detection of threats. Selective or general scanning is used if the anti-virus is installed on a device that was previously functioning without protection. It is also useful to periodically perform a selective scan of the most vulnerable sectors of the system.
Password manager. In fact, it is encrypted file storage for storing logins and passwords.
Payment protection. This function is more often present in advanced versions of paid antiviruses and is aimed at preventing money theft during online payment.
Antispam. Is a module that filters mail traffic by sending suspicious messages to a separate folder, where media files are blocked when messages are opened to prevent the penetration of worms. Filtering of advertising and campaigning spam is also carried out.
Antiphishing. It is a module aimed at timely blocking of copy pages that collect the personal data of users.
Parental control. Advanced settings allow you to set the necessary restrictions when a child works at a computer, thereby protecting him from viewing unwanted content and visiting potentially dangerous Internet resources.

Accordingly, the antivirus repels attacks in several directions at once, while it is designed both to eliminate the problem “in fact” and to prevent new attacks.