Now, we will dwell a
little bit about your personal computing. I wouldn't say much about Mobile
computing (yet) for this episode as I
see that the topic on antivirus and Internet security suites does not suit
mobile computing as the necessity is not just as rampant on desktop computing.
But be aware though as this must not put complacency on us. Constant vigilance
(reminds me of a known best seller novel said in one of its volume) is still
necessary.
As we go forward in
our endeavor on our Internet computing, days are gone by when intrusions on our
productivity has been purely on offline attacks. The "enemy" has
evolved into a more sinister form and so should our defenses. Early Internet days
are plagued with so much insecure channels that caused millions of dollars of
collateral damages (both from stolen credit card accounts to unrecoverable
data/information) . Those were the days of the viruses. Viruses evolved from
productivity stealing to data stealing. They propagate on network channels. The
heroes back then were the antivirus programs.
Antivirus programs tracks the computers from malicious programs (a.k.a. virus
executables) from their activities. Antivirus evolved to several other features
that hinders release of the known (and unknown) viruses such as heuristic
scanning (best described as a feature of antivirus programs that track dormant
or active programs that does "fishy" things to your computer)
When the rise of
Internet usage, programs such as firewall, anti-malware, anti phishing and
other forms of programs that specifically blocks all known (and unknown) forms
of intrusion and destruction programs. I would like to emphasize on the
"unknown" which I said earlier twice that these programs are not
really unknown in form. We can only say a program to be "known" if it
has a definite signature (i.e. program signature) and has been given a name.
Basically, those are the programs that carries signatures like the
"known" forms but has not yet been given a name (i.e. identified
formally). Defensive programs for our
computing environment now becomes instead of one single program (i.e. antivirus
programs), it becomes multiple programs. Those programs as a whole are called Internet Security suites. There are several known developers/publishers
of these Internet Security suites throughout the Internet (such as Norton,
McAfee, Kaspersky, AVG, Avira). The choice resides on the users and unlike
before, high tier antivirus suites fight intrusions and viruses/malicious
softwares (a.k.a. malwares), and worms similarly. Their usability and
feasibility lies on the forms of how far your security protection requirements.
These Internet security suites are really pricey and it should be assessed back
to you on how much you "want" to shell out versus acceptable
exposures (a.k.a. how much protection you want against the known and
"unknown" programs).
In the end, knowing
which one your need and your budget is an important aspect to consider
specially if you just need to avail Antivirus only or the full Internet
Security suites. An important aspect is that full Internet Security suites
combines Antivirus with other programs as well to give you a better online
protection.
For additional
readings, you can check out the following links
Difference Between Antivirus and Internet Security
Internet
security
Antivirus Software vs. Internet Security Suites
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