Malware and Antivirus: What’s the Difference?
When shopping or researching cybersecurity, you will surely see the terms antivirus and malware used a lot. Frequently, it seems, they are used interchangeably.
Let’s take a look at how these terms evolved and the confusion surrounding them.
Early days of antivirus software
Even before there was a web to surf, cyber thieves were already hard at work.
In 1989, thousands of floppy disks were mailed to subscribers of Business World magazine. When recipients downloaded the included mailing list, they also downloaded a Trojan that lay dormant until the user started their machine 91 more times. Then, all of the computer’s files were encrypted and a payment of $189 was demanded. It was the first ransomware attack in history, and it spread without the aid of email or the internet.
Also In 1989, the World Wide Web was invented. Within 10 years, computers became essential in every business and many homes. The web created a great new way to distribute viruses. Antivirus protection was needed. And almost overnight, the number of files being transferred from one computer to another made the antivirus industry necessary.
One common trait of those viruses made it relatively easy for good antivirus software to keep a computer clean. There were only a few thousand viruses in the wild, and each had its own unique signature. As long as your antivirus signature database was up to date, you were in good shape.
Attack of the worms
No, not those worms. These worms arrive via email and dig into your computer.
The number of email users grew from one million in 1989 to 400 million just 10 years later. In 2000, the ILOVEYOU worm amplified the effectiveness of its technology with social engineering to infect millions of computers in a few hours.
As viruses found new distribution mechanisms and ways of attacking systems, antivirus software evolved to handle these threats as well. Viruses, Trojans och worms were all on the antivirus radar.
Threats become more difficult to identify
Since the birth of antivirus software, hackers and antivirus scientists have been fighting each other to get an edge. Hackers have invented untold numbers methods of taking control of your computer, keyloggers that record your usernames and passwords, same day attacks that probe computers and networks for vulnerabilities and immediately launch an attack at that vulnerability.
What’s more, they have invented (and keep inventing more) ways to hide or eliminate virus signatures. Without those signatures, traditional antivirus software is not effective.
The term malware came into use to distinguish these harder-to-identify threats from signature-identifiable viruses. But in reality, all cyber threats to your computer are malware. Viruses are a type of malware.
Today, the most sophisticated malware is detected not by equally-sophisticated machine learning systems that recognize a threat by the way its delivery software or file behaves. This advance in cybersecurity is critical to fighting all types of malware today, because more than 10 million malware apps have already been created and another 350,000 new malware apps are unleashed every day. Relying strictly on a database that requires constant revising and uploading is impractical.
But old-fashioned viruses are still out there, and still trying to get inside your computer.
Which do you need, antivirus or anti-malware protection?
The good news is that highly rated antivirus software also fights more sophisticated malware. And, first class anti-malware software typically handles traditional viruses.
So, why are some called antivirus while others are called anti-malware? Companies that have been around since the early days of the antivirus industry tend to continue to use the term antivirus, while companies that came on the scene as malware became more sophisticated prefer to use the term anti-malware.
What you need to do is find malware antivirus software that shares all of these qualities:
- Lätt att använda
- Doesn’t slow down your computer
- Handles traditional viruses, worms and Trojans
- Recognizes 100% of sophisticated malware threats
- Earns high ratings from independent experts
With that kind of protection, you won’t care what it’s called.
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