How to Use Antivirus Software and Malware Scanners

In this video, we’re going learn some best practises for antivirus software and malware scanners. So no matter what operating system you have, there’s probably antivirus for it. For example, Windows has Windows Defender, which is built in, Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, Clam, Norton, McAfee. Linux has Sophos, Clam, F-Protect, ESET, AVAST Core. If you’re an Apple user, we have McAfee, Norton, Kaspersky, Sophos. And Cloud-wise, there’s Panda, VirusTotal, and Trend Micro. So you’re really covered no matter which operating system you’re going with. So there’s really not an excuse not to have an antivirus on your system. And if you’re looking for a dedicated malware scanner, you may want to take a look at Malwarebytes. It’s a malware scanner that’s free.

And there’s a paid version that has a bit more features. Now, pretty much any antivirus vendor is going to have some sort of malware scanner built in. But again, if you’re looking for a dedicated one, Malwarebytes is a pretty good way to go. And it’s available for Windows, OS X, Chrome, and Android.

Now, free versus paid– generally, both will detect much of the same viruses. Matter of fact, a while back I generated a bunch of viruses, put them through different obfuscation tools, to kind of test this out. So a lot of the antivirus vendors will detect the same thing, whether it’s free or paid. So what’s the real difference between these? Paid is generally recommended for networks. I would definitely do a paid version for a network. Or if you’re looking for additional tools, if there’s additional features on the paid version that you’re looking for.

Paid versions will generally have a management console for larger network deployments, and have a network deployment piece in there, so it could actually push out the antivirus to the different machines out there. Pay versions also generally have more features such as computer auditing. It’ll tell you who has antivirus, who doesn’t, who’s out of date, who got a virus, what type of virus it is– a lot of really useful things for networks. Now again, that tends to be in the paid version. So if you’re running a network, you’ll generally want to look at the paid version of the antivirus. It’ll make your life a lot easier.

So an out of date antivirus scanner is only marginally better than no antivirus at all. That’s from the 10 Immutable Laws of Security, from Microsoft TechNet. Now, not having an– or, having an antivirus, rather, that never scans, – does you zero good. So you do want to make sure antivirus is not only installed on your computer, but it’s up to date, and that it’s doing regular scans.