However, the risk of infecting your computer is significantly less with VM’s, and is a safer method when it comes to testing antivirus. There are still risks to using VM’s: to get the most accurate readings of effectiveness, the VM should be exposed to high-levels of malware, but with more malware comes more risk of a breach. They operate the same as your network, but instead of uploading malware directly to your network, the malware is uploaded to an inception-like version of your network, and the antivirus can be tested in a more controlled, safer manner. Virtual machines are operational computer systems that runs from within another system. Thus, the safer method is to create a “safe” testing environment, or a virtual machine (VM). However, if the antivirus fails, the malware is then installed with no working line of defense, and the results can devastate your network. When comparing antivirus products, the best way to get the most accurate readings on each products’ success is to test it against real malware. First-generation signature-based antivirus cannot accomplish this. Machine learning systems are specifically designed to learn and adapt beyond their initial programming input, meaning these products are able to detect mutated malware, even if the turn-around is less than 24 hours. This is where antivirus products with machine learning, like SparkCognition’s DeepArmor®, shine. There are several commercial companies that provide antivirus for prevalent and polymorphic malware, but zero-day malware is a different beast. Zero-day is malware comprised of never-seen-before threats, and without the help of artificial intelligence can pose significant problems for antivirus software.

Polymorphic is malware that has been specifically altered to evade antivirus, making it difficult, but not impossible to combat with antivirus.Prevalent malware is simply common malware, and is typically easy to prevent.Malware has three most notable variations: Interested in Advanced Endpoint Protection?īefore testing the effectiveness of your antivirus, it is important to understand the different types and severities of threats.

How to use virtualbox for virus testing