How does an Anti Virus work?

 

 

A computer virus is a computer program which copies it self and infects a computer. A virus can spread from one computer when a file system or a network containing a virus is accessed by another computer.
An Anti-Virus is a software program that can be used to scan the files and eliminate the computer virus and any other malware. Anti virus software typically uses two techniques to accomplish this:

• Examining files to look for known viruses by means of a virus dictionary.
• Identifying suspecious behaviour from any other computer program which might indicate infection.

Most anti viruses uses both of these approach.

 

While following virus dictionary approach to benifit in the long run virus dictionary is to be updated from time to time. In suspicious behaviour approach the anti virus software monitors the behaviour of the files and if it is found suspicious then informs the user and askes what to do.