Defending Your Digital World: The Importance of Keeping Your Antivirus Up-to-Date

We are increasingly reliant on technology for various aspects of our lives, safeguarding our digital assets has become paramount. One of the essential tools in this endeavour is antivirus software.

Antivirus software, commonly referred to as antivirus or AV software, is a specialized program designed to detect, prevent, and remove malicious software, also known as malware, from your computer or any other digital device. Malware consists of a wide range of threats, including viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, ransomware, and many more. The primary objective of antivirus software is to protect your system and personal information from these digital threats.

Antivirus software works in a way that it has digital libraries of known malicious code i.e., an ever-growing database of all the malware that has been found out there and identified by various security experts. The Library is updated frequently no matter which antivirus software you are subscribed to or using. Some antivirus software applications are updated more frequently than others, some are better than others and some have better examples than others since new code is constantly churned out as far as malware is concerned.

Antivirus software scans your computer for evidence of these examples of known malicious code and if it finds one, it will isolate that code to mitigate any harm and often will automatically remove the code as well. Some programs also require you to give the command to remove the malware but it will isolate it as soon as possible so that it can't do any more harm.

The operating system used is also a big factor as to whether or not you should have antivirus software. If you use a Windows-based machine, you need antivirus software reason is because there are more Windows-based machines out there than other OS’ which in turn means that when criminals are designing malicious software, they want to have the biggest impact they can have so they are going to be programming their malicious software for the platforms that are the most plentiful out there.

Personal computers and work computers, tend to be Windows-based machines, so when you know that most of the malicious software written out there is being written for Windows devices and you use a Windows device, that in turn tells you should have antivirus software installed on your machine just because you are likely to be a target.

There are other platforms out there that are also not immune, The Mac operating system has a great reputation since Apple locks down its system and makes it very difficult to gain access to it. There are still examples of malware written specifically for Mac OS and they have been on the rise in recent years. Previously, Apple enjoyed security through obscurity since malware authors weren’t targeting those machines but that’s no longer the case. While Apple takes a very lockdown approach compared to the much more open systems like Linux and Windows machines, that doesn’t make it immune to malware.

Cybercriminals are constantly developing new malware strains and techniques. Antivirus software vendors regularly update their databases with new data and information on these emerging security threats. An outdated antivirus may not recognize these new threats since when it compares with its internal library of known malware, it may not be able to identify this new malware that has been added leaving your system vulnerable hence it is always very important to ensure your antivirus is constantly up-to date.

Operating systems and other software applications also always receive updates to fix security vulnerabilities within their systems. An up-to-date antivirus complements these patches by guarding against exploits that target unpatched vulnerabilities.

In conclusion, antivirus software is a vital defense against the ever-present and evolving threat landscape of malware. To maximize its effectiveness, it is imperative to keep your antivirus up-to-date. Always practice good computer security, and if you can, consider a combination of Virtual Private Networks and antivirus software to protect yourself as well as companies that allow users to work remotely and deal with sensitive information.

The writer, Jordan Kinobe works in the Data Protection Affairs department at PDPO.