Managed Anti-Virus: One of the Best Investments You’ll Ever Make

It’s a sad fact of life that there are some people who devote themselves to the wanton destruction of total strangers’ computers and files.  Why? Well, that’s a question for others, but it does mean that the requirement for anti-virus protection is indisputable. Managed anti-virus is the best way to do so.

What is a Virus?

A virus is a piece of code that is loaded onto a computer without the user’s knowledge or permission and which performs malicious actions.  Like a biological virus, computer viruses can copy themselves and spread from host to host, wreaking havoc and destruction to computers and to files.  The infection is spread via the internet and from exposure to an infected computer.

What Does a Virus Do?

Viruses, trojans, spyware, worms, ransomware and others are collective known as malware, a contraction of “malicious software”.  And they certainly are malicious. They attach themselves to clean files and infect other clean files. Some of the newer viruses will even physically destroy a hard drive.  They do this by copying so much data so quickly that it literally overheats and burns out the hard drive.

The intent of malware is to damage devices, steal data, extort money, and generally create havoc.  And it certainly does that!

You may remember the 16 hospitals in the UK that were shut down in 2017 as a result of “WannaCry”, a ransomware attack that froze the hospitals’ computer systems.  When hospital employees tried to access files, they were presented with demands for money. As a result, hospital personnel were unable to access basic medical records and had to reschedule hundreds of patient appointments and even cancel non-urgent surgery.

How to Protect Against Viruses

There are a number of commercially available protection programs that you can load onto your computer.  These programs work by detecting and disarming known types of malware. They work well against malware that is registered in their database but the limitation of these out-of-the-box programs is that they are only as effective as the provider’s database is kept current and the user updates the files.

A report published in 2015 on CNN Business warns that “nearly 1 million new malware threats [are] released every day”.  The packaged program providers update their databases to defend against new threats, but time is always a factor. Many of them update their database on a daily basis and some of them update multiple times daily.  Not all of them update on weekends.

Maybe they’re fast enough, and then again, maybe they’re not.  According to a Verizon security report, “it only takes 82 seconds for someone to get duped and become the first victim.”  These viruses can spread far and wide long before the provider has had a chance to get a hold on the signature.

Managed Anti-Virus Service – Effective Protection

The most effective protection against malware is Computer Medic On Call ’s managed anti-virus service.

A managed anti-virus protection service is, as the name implies, managed.  Unlike automated systems, in a managed anti-virus service a live technician monitors and responds to invaders.

The software that Computer Medic On Call uses is a behavioral, machine-based model that can detect almost any kind of attack, including brand new ones.  It uses AI and machine learning to block and defeat known and unknown threats.

We know that unusual activity doesn’t always mean that an invader is hard at work.  The technician distinguishes between a new application and an actual threat and will even check with the user before shutting the unusual activity down so your workflow remains unhampered.