Product Code Database
Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is software intended to prevent, detect, and remove malware.
Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove , hence the name. However, with the proliferation of other malware, antivirus software started to protect against other computer threats. Some products also include protection from malicious , spam, and phishing.
The Creeper virus was eventually deleted by a program created by Ray Tomlinson and known as "The Reaper". Some people consider "The Reaper" the first antivirus software ever written – it may be the case, but it is important to note that the Reaper was actually a virus itself specifically designed to remove the Creeper virus.
The Creeper virus was followed by several other viruses. The first known that appeared "in the wild" was "Elk Cloner", in 1981, which infected Apple II computers.
In 1983, the term "computer virus" was coined by Fred Cohen in one of the first ever published academic papers on . Fred Cohen: "Computer Viruses – Theory and Experiments" (1983) . Eecs.umich.edu (November 3, 1983). Retrieved on 2017-01-03. Cohen used the term "computer virus" to describe programs that: "affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of itself." (note that a more recent definition of computer virus has been given by the Hungarian security researcher Péter Szőr: "a code that recursively replicates a possibly evolved copy of itself").
The first IBM PC compatible "in the wild" computer virus, and one of the first real widespread infections, was "Brain" in 1986. From then, the number of viruses has grown exponentially. Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid-1980s were limited to self-reproduction and had no specific damage routine built into the code. That changed when more and more programmers became acquainted with computer virus programming and created viruses that manipulated or even destroyed data on infected computers.
Before internet connectivity was widespread, computer viruses were typically spread by infected . Antivirus software came into use, but was updated relatively infrequently. During this time, virus checkers essentially had to check executable files and the boot sectors of floppy disks and hard disks. However, as internet usage became common, viruses began to spread online.
In 1987, Andreas Lüning and Kai Figge, who founded G Data Software in 1985, released their first antivirus product for the Atari ST platform. In 1987, the Ultimate Virus Killer (UVK) was also released. This was the de facto industry standard virus killer for the Atari ST and Atari Falcon, the last version of which (version 9.0) was released in April 2004. In 1987, in the United States, John McAfee founded the McAfee company and, at the end of that year, he released the first version of McAfee VirusScan. Also in 1987 (in Czechoslovakia), Peter Paško, Rudolf Hrubý, and Miroslav Trnka created the first version of NOD antivirus.
In 1987, Fred Cohen wrote that there is no algorithm that can perfectly detect all possible computer viruses.Cohen, Fred, An Undetectable Computer Virus (Archived), 1987, IBM
Finally, at the end of 1987, the first two heuristic antivirus utilities were released: Flushot Plus by Ross Greenberg and Anti4us by Erwin Lanting. In his O'Reilly book, Malicious Mobile Code: Virus Protection for Windows, Roger Grimes described Flushot Plus as "the first holistic program to fight malicious mobile code (MMC)."
However, the kind of heuristic used by early AV engines was totally different from those used today. The first product with a heuristic engine resembling modern ones was F-PROT in 1991. Early heuristic engines were based on dividing the binary into different sections: data section, code section (in a legitimate binary, it usually starts always from the same location). Indeed, the initial viruses re-organized the layout of the sections, or overrode the initial portion of a section in order to jump to the very end of the file where malicious code was located—only going back to resume execution of the original code. This was a very specific pattern, not used at the time by any legitimate software, which represented an elegant heuristic to catch suspicious code. Other kinds of more advanced heuristics were later added, such as suspicious section names, incorrect header size, regular expressions, and partial pattern in-memory matching.
In 1988, the growth of antivirus companies continued. In Germany, Tjark Auerbach founded Avira ( H+BEDV at the time) and released the first version of AntiVir (named "Luke Filewalker" at the time). In Spain, Carlos Jiménez released the first version of his antivirus (he founded Anyware Seguridad Informática, now part of McAfee, one year later). In Bulgaria, Vesselin Bontchev released his first freeware antivirus program (he later joined FRISK Software). Also Frans Veldman released the first version of ThunderByte Antivirus, also known as TBAV (he sold his company to Norman Safeground in 1998). In Czechoslovakia, Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera founded Avast Software (at the time ALWIL Software) and released their first version of avast! antivirus. In June 1988, in South Korea, Ahn Cheol-Soo released its first antivirus software, called V1 (he founded AhnLab later in 1995). Finally, in autumn 1988, in the United Kingdom, Alan Solomon founded S&S International and created his Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit (although he launched it commercially only in 1991 – in 1998 Solomon's company was acquired by McAfee, then known as Network Associates Inc.).
Also in 1988, a mailing list named VIRUS-L was started on the BITNET/EARN network where new viruses and the possibilities of detecting and eliminating viruses were discussed. Some members of this mailing list were: Alan Solomon, Eugene Kaspersky (Kaspersky Lab), Friðrik Skúlason (FRISK Software), John McAfee (McAfee), Luis Corrons (Panda Security), Mikko Hyppönen (F-Secure), Péter Szőr, Tjark Auerbach (Avira) and Vesselin Bontchev (FRISK Software).
In 1989, in Iceland, Friðrik Skúlason created the first version of F-PROT Anti-Virus (he founded FRISK Software only in 1993). Meanwhile, in the United States, NortonLifeLock (founded by Gary Hendrix in 1982) launched its first Norton AntiVirus (SAM).SAM Identifies Virus-Infected Files, Repairs Applications, InfoWorld, May 22, 1989 SAM 2.0, released March 1990, incorporated technology allowing users to easily update SAM to intercept and eliminate new viruses, including many that didn't exist at the time of the program's release.SAM Update Lets Users Program for New Viruses, InfoWorld, February 19, 1990
In the end of the 1980s, in United Kingdom, Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer founded the security firm Sophos and began producing their first antivirus and encryption products. In the same period, in Hungary, VirusBuster was founded (and subsequently incorporated by Sophos).
In 1990, the Computer Antivirus Research Organization (CARO) was founded. In 1991, CARO released the "Virus Naming Scheme", originally written by Friðrik Skúlason and Vesselin Bontchev. Although this naming scheme is now outdated, it remains the only existing standard that most computer security companies and researchers ever attempted to adopt. CARO members includes: Alan Solomon, Costin Raiu, Dmitry Gryaznov, Eugene Kaspersky, Friðrik Skúlason, Igor Muttik, Mikko Hyppönen, Morton Swimmer, Nick FitzGerald, Padgett Peterson, Peter Ferrie, Righard Zwienenberg and Vesselin Bontchev. CAROids, Hamburg 2003
In 1991, in the United States, NortonLifeLock released the first version of Norton AntiVirus. In the same year, in the Czech Republic, Jan Gritzbach and Tomáš Hofer founded AVG Technologies ( Grisoft at the time), although they released the first version of their Anti-Virus Guard (AVG) only in 1992. On the other hand, in Finland, F-Secure (founded in 1988 by Petri Allas and Risto Siilasmaa – with the name of Data Fellows) released the first version of their antivirus product. F-Secure claims to be the first antivirus firm to establish a presence on the World Wide Web.
In 1991, the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research (EICAR) was founded to further antivirus research and improve development of antivirus software.
In 1992, in Russia, Igor Danilov released the first version of SpiderWeb, which later became Dr.Web.
In 1994, AV-TEST reported that there were 28,613 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.In
Over time other companies were founded. In 1996, in Romania, Bitdefender was founded and released the first version of Anti-Virus eXpert (AVX). In 1997, in Russia, Eugene Kaspersky and Natalya Kaspersky co-founded security firm Kaspersky Lab.
In 1996, there was also the first "in the wild" Linux virus, known as "Staog".
In 1999, AV-TEST reported that there were 98,428 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.
In 2001, Tomasz Kojm released the first version of ClamAV, the first ever open source antivirus engine to be commercialised. In 2007, ClamAV was bought by Sourcefire, which in turn was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2013.
In 2002, in United Kingdom, Morten Lund and Theis Søndergaard co-founded the antivirus firm BullGuard. Der Unternehmer – brand eins online . Brandeins.de (July 2009). Retrieved on January 3, 2017.
In 2005, AV-TEST reported that there were 333,425 unique malware samples (based on MD5) in their database.
Over the years it has become necessary for antivirus software to use several different strategies (e.g. specific email and network protection or low level modules) and detection algorithms, as well as to check an increasing variety of files, rather than just executables, for several reasons:
In 2005, F-Secure was the first security firm that developed an Anti-Rootkit technology, called BlackLight.
Because most users are usually connected to the Internet on a continual basis, Jon Oberheide first proposed a Cloud computing antivirus design in 2008.
In February 2008 McAfee Labs added the industry-first cloud-based anti-malware functionality to VirusScan under the name Artemis. It was tested by AV-Comparatives in February 2008 McAfee Artemis Preview Report . av-comparatives.org and officially unveiled in August 2008 in McAfee VirusScan. McAfee Third Quarter 2008 . corporate-ir.net
Cloud AV created problems for comparative testing of security software – part of the AV definitions was out of testers control (on constantly updated AV company servers) thus making results non-repeatable. As a result, Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation (AMTSO) started working on method of testing cloud products which was adopted on May 7, 2009.
In 2011, AVG introduced a similar cloud service, called Protective Cloud Technology.
One method from Bromium involves micro-virtualization to protect desktops from malicious code execution initiated by the end user. Another approach from SentinelOne and Carbon Black focuses on behavioral detection by building a full context around every process execution path in real time, while Cylance leverages an artificial intelligence model based on machine learning.
Increasingly, these signature-less approaches have been defined by the media and analyst firms as "next-generation" antivirus and are seeing rapid market adoption as certified antivirus replacement technologies by firms such as Coalfire and DirectDefense. In response, traditional antivirus vendors such as Trend Micro, NortonLifeLock and Sophos have responded by incorporating "next-gen" offerings into their portfolios as analyst firms such as Forrester and Gartner have called traditional signature-based antivirus "ineffective" and "outdated". The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security Suites, Q4 2016 . Forrester.com (October 19, 2016). Retrieved on 2017-01-03.
As of Windows 8, Windows includes its own free antivirus protection under the Windows Defender brand. Despite bad detection scores in its early days, AV-Test now certifies Defender as one of its top products. While it isn't publicly known how the inclusion of antivirus software in Windows affected antivirus sales, Google search traffic for antivirus has declined significantly since 2010. In 2014, Intel bought McAfee.
Since 2016, there has been a notable amount of consolidation in the industry. Avast purchased AVG AntiVirus in 2016 for $1.3 billion. Avira was acquired by Norton AntiVirus owner Gen Digital (then NortonLifeLock) in 2020 for $360 million. In 2021, the Avira division of Gen Digital acquired BullGuard. The BullGuard brand was discontinued in 2022 and its customers were migrated to Norton. In 2022, Gen Digital acquired Avast, effectively consolidating four major antivirus brands under one owner.
In September 2024, following the US Commerce Department's ban on Kaspersky Lab, Pango Group acquired its customers (about 1 million). The customers received continued services with no action required on their part. Then, in December 2024, Pango Group merged with Total Security, the provider of Total AV antivirus. The combined entity, now called Point Wild, has an enterprise value of $1.7 billion.
As of 2024, more than half of Americans use built-in antivirus protection for their devices like Microsoft Defender or XProtect from Apple. However, about 121 million adults still use third-party antivirus software. Half of these adults use paid products, and about 50% of third-party software users - the owners of personal computers and Windows operating systems. Antivirus programs on mobile devices are used by 17% of adults.
The 2025 antivirus market report confirms that most third-party antivirus users are on desktop devices, primarily aged between 35 and 45. In contrast, younger users (18–25) tend to rely on Ad blocking instead. In the U.S., on average, 75–85% of people use antivirus software or some other form of protection on at least one device. Antivirus software for computers and is predominantly used by residents of large cities. Mobile device users more often rely on rather than antivirus software for digital security. Moreover, the majority of password‑manager users live in medium‑sized and small towns.
There are several methods which antivirus engines can use to identify malware:
Substantially, when a malware sample arrives in the hands of an antivirus firm, it is analysed by malware researchers or by dynamic analysis systems. Then, once it is determined to be a malware, a proper signature of the file is extracted and added to the signatures database of the antivirus software. Automatic Malware Signature Generation . (PDF) . Retrieved on January 3, 2017.
Although the signature-based approach can effectively contain malware outbreaks, malware authors have tried to stay a step ahead of such software by writing "oligomorphic", "polymorphic code" and, more recently, "Metamorphic code" viruses, which encrypt parts of themselves or otherwise modify themselves as a method of disguise, so as to not match virus signatures in the dictionary.
For example, the Vundo trojan has several family members, depending on the antivirus vendor's classification. NortonLifeLock classifies members of the Vundo family into two distinct categories, Trojan.Vundo and Trojan.Vundo.B.
While it may be advantageous to identify a specific virus, it can be quicker to detect a virus family through a generic signature or through an inexact match to an existing signature. Virus researchers find common areas that all viruses in a family share uniquely and can thus create a single generic signature. These signatures often contain non-contiguous code, using wildcard characters where differences lie. These wildcards allow the scanner to detect viruses even if they are padded with extra, meaningless code. A detection that uses this method is said to be "heuristic detection".
ML-based detection can be highly effective, but still faces significant challenges. Concept drift occurs as malware continuously evolves, causing trained models to degrade in accuracy over time without regular retraining on fresh samples. Research has demonstrated that even simple obfuscation techniques can create adversarial variants that bypass ML-based detectors while preserving malicious functionality. (2026). 9781450377751 ISBN 9781450377751 Additionally, the highly imbalanced nature of real-world data, where benign files vastly outnumber malicious ones, makes acquiring training data difficult and requires careful tuning to avoid unacceptable false positive rates. (2026). 9781450368339 ISBN 9781450368339
Examples of serious false-positives:
It is sometimes necessary to temporarily disable virus protection when installing major updates such as Windows Service Packs or updating graphics card drivers. Active antivirus protection may partially or completely prevent the installation of a major update. Anti-virus software can cause problems during the installation of an operating system upgrade, e.g. when upgrading to a newer version of Windows "in place"—without erasing the previous version of Windows. Microsoft recommends that anti-virus software be disabled to avoid conflicts with the upgrade installation process. Mentioned within "Before you begin". Mentioned within "General troubleshooting". Active anti-virus software can also interfere with a firmware update process.
The functionality of a few computer programs can be hampered by active anti-virus software. For example, TrueCrypt, a disk encryption program, states on its troubleshooting page that anti-virus programs can conflict with TrueCrypt and cause it to malfunction or operate very slowly. Anti-virus software can impair the performance and stability of games running in the Steam platform. Steam support page.
Support issues also exist around antivirus application interoperability with common solutions like VPN and network access control products. These technology solutions often have policy assessment applications that require an up-to-date antivirus to be installed and running. If the antivirus application is not recognized by the policy assessment, whether because the antivirus application has been updated or because it is not part of the policy assessment library, the user will be unable to connect.
The problem is magnified by the changing intent of virus authors. Some years ago it was obvious when a virus infection was present. At the time, viruses were written by amateurs and exhibited destructive behavior or pop-up ad. Modern viruses are often written by professionals, financed by Organized crime.
In 2008, Eva Chen, CEO of Trend Micro, stated that the anti-virus industry has over-hyped how effective its products are—and so has been misleading customers—for years.
Independent testing on all the major virus scanners consistently shows that none provides 100% virus detection. The best ones provided as high as 99.9% detection for simulated real-world situations, while the lowest provided 91.1% in tests conducted in August 2013. Many virus scanners produce false positive results as well, identifying benign files as malware.
Although methods may differ, some notable independent quality testing agencies include AV-Comparatives, ICSA Labs, SE Labs, West Coast Labs, Virus Bulletin, AV-TEST and other members of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization.
Some new viruses, particularly ransomware, use polymorphic code to avoid detection by virus scanners. Jerome Segura, a security analyst with ParetoLogic, explained:
A proof of concept virus has used the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to avoid detection from anti-virus software. The potential success of this involves bypassing the CPU in order to make it much harder for security researchers to analyse the inner workings of such malware.
Furthermore, inexperienced users can be lulled into a false sense of security when using the computer, considering their computers to be invulnerable, and may have problems understanding the prompts and decisions that antivirus software presents them with. An incorrect decision may lead to a security breach. If the antivirus software employs heuristic detection, it must be fine-tuned to minimize misidentifying harmless software as malicious (false positive).
Antivirus software itself usually runs at the highly trusted kernel level of the operating system to allow it access to all the potential malicious process and files, creating a potential avenue of attack. The US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agencies, respectively, have been exploiting anti-virus software to spy on users. Anti-virus software has highly privileged and trusted access to the underlying operating system, which makes it a much more appealing target for remote attacks. Additionally anti-virus software is "years behind security-conscious client-side applications like browsers or document readers. It means that Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word or Google Chrome are harder to exploit than 90 percent of the anti-virus products out there", according to Joxean Koret, a researcher with Coseinc, a Singapore-based information security consultancy.
One approach to implementing cloud antivirus involves scanning suspicious files using multiple antivirus engines. This approach was proposed by an early implementation of the cloud antivirus concept called CloudAV. CloudAV was designed to send programs or documents to a cloud computing where multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs are used simultaneously in order to improve detection rates. Parallel scanning of files using potentially incompatible antivirus scanners is achieved by spawning a virtual machine per detection engine and therefore eliminating any possible issues. CloudAV can also perform "retrospective detection", whereby the cloud detection engine rescans all files in its file access history when a new threat is identified thus improving new threat detection speed. Finally, CloudAV is a solution for effective virus scanning on devices that lack the computing power to perform the scans themselves.
Some examples of cloud anti-virus products are Panda Cloud Antivirus and Immunet. Comodo Group has also produced cloud-based anti-virus.
CDR malware removal does not attempt to identify malware behavior before taking action; rather, it employs a zero-trust approach against files entering a network perimeter. This can make it an effective solution for protecting networks against zero-day vulnerabilities.
A rescue disk that is bootable, such as a CD or USB storage device, can be used to run antivirus software outside of the installed operating system in order to remove infections while they are dormant. A bootable rescue disk can be useful when, for example, the installed operating system is no longer bootable or has malware that is resisting all attempts to be removed by the installed antivirus software. Examples of software that can be used on a bootable rescue disk include the Kaspersky Rescue Disk, Trend Micro Rescue Disk, and Comodo Group Rescue Disk.
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