Anti-Malware software is a great way to protect your device from malicious files. However, this method cannot cope with all possible cyber threats because it works based on certificates of protection against common viruses. Still, it cannot prevent an attempt at data leakage. Therefore, companies should take more advanced steps to protect their systems when using a corporate computer. In this article, we will tell you how to protect yourself from new forms of malware.
Why can your computer get infected even with antivirus?
Antivirus software is a prerequisite for your computer and for a long time it has been assumed that it is the only protection your computer needs. Nevertheless, IT experts say it cannot make your device completely resistant to hacking. Its vulnerability lies at the heart of how it works. To detect a virus, an antivirus uses a database of existing viruses, identifies it, and neutralizes it. This means that if it encounters something new that has not yet been entered into the database, it will not notice it. This is quite a serious problem, as cyber hacking techniques are actively evolving, and antivirus cannot keep up with them. Cybersecurity is becoming more and more difficult to maintain because of newer ways to circumvent antiviruses, so of course, they should be at the core of every protection, but that protection should not be limited to antivirus alone.
What cyber threats can’t antivirus detect?
Viruses can bypass antivirus barriers simply by changing their signature. A significant change is modifying a part of the virus code during its spreading. A virus only needs to change a part of the code that doesn’t affect its functioning to get past the antivirus’s defenses. A virus works at this point because the malware has an encryption generator that generates different encryption algorithms. The encryption functions then encode and decode those functions that harm and tamper with the code.
Another virus workaround is payload encryption. Cybercriminals use header programs attached to the encoded virus’s front end. The antivirus does not recognize this program as a threat, and the virus, which is encoded, is perceived as a normal data set. Once the virus has entered the system, the header decodes it into a memory area, moves the program counter to that area, and starts the virus.
How does it prevent new viruses from infecting the system?
Despite all the sophisticated methods of criminality, there is still a solution to keep you safe. More modern and high-quality antivirus programs scan the file system, memory, and active processes for malware.
At the same time, modern operating systems and processors support non-executable memory. They work by marking memory as unexecutable if it is available to a program that is not used to run the program. Thus, if any malware manages to insert its code into the memory of such a program, it cannot be activated. This puts sticks on the cybercriminals’ wheels because it makes it much easier to detect an infected program. In addition, today’s antiviruses allow the listing to detect unknown malware rather than known viruses. The way an allowlist work is that it has a database of the most known and necessary file signatures. If a file does not match those signatures or if its signature has changed (in even the slightest way), it is flagged as potentially infected. It is then moved to a restricted area that will not threaten the system. For security prevention, users are advised to update all programs on endpoints regularly.