Antivirus software detects, blocks, and removes malicious code, helping reduce the risk of malware-driven data theft and system disruption.
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Background for this topic.
Antivirus software scans files and running processes to detect and remove malicious code such as viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, and spyware. It uses signature databases, heuristic rules, and behavioral analysis to identify threats during real-time monitoring or scheduled scans. Regular updates to detection rules are necessary to recognize new malware variants and reduce false negatives.
While antivirus helps block many common malware infections on endpoints, it has limited effectiveness against advanced threats like fileless malware or attacks that evade signature detection. Security teams should combine antivirus with complementary tools such as endpoint detection and response (EDR) to improve visibility and threat hunting. Proper tuning is important to minimize false positives and performance impacts that can disrupt operations or obscure genuine alerts.
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