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Viruses and Malware

Tens of thousands of virus/malware exist, with more being created each day. Computer viruses today can cause a great amount of damage by exploiting vulnerabilities in corporate networks, email systems and websites.

OfficeScan protects computers from the following virus/malware types:

Joke Program

A joke program is a virus-like program that often manipulates the appearance of things on a computer monitor.

Trojan Horse Program

A Trojan horse is an executable program that does not replicate but instead resides on computers to perform malicious acts, such as opening ports for hackers to enter. This program often uses a Trojan Port to gain access to computers. An application that claims to rid a computer of viruses when it actually introduces viruses to the computer is an example of a Trojan program. Traditional antivirus solutions can detect and remove viruses but not Trojans, especially those already running on the system.

Virus

A virus is a program that replicates. To do so, the virus needs to attach itself to other program files and execute whenever the host program executes.

Test Virus

A test virus is an inert file that is detectable by virus scanning software. Use test viruses, such as the EICAR test script, to verify that the antivirus installation scans properly.

Packer

Packers are compressed and/or encrypted Windows or Linux™ executable programs, often a Trojan horse program. Compressing executables makes packers more difficult for antivirus products to detect.

Probable Virus/Malware

Suspicious files that have some of the characteristics of virus/malware are categorized under this virus/malware type. For details about probable virus/malware, see the following page on the Trend Micro online Virus Encyclopedia:

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=POSSIBLE_VIRUS

Network Virus

A virus spreading over a network is not, strictly speaking, a network virus. Only some virus/malware types, such as worms, qualify as network viruses. Specifically, network viruses use network protocols, such as TCP, FTP, UDP, HTTP, and email protocols to replicate. They often do not alter system files or modify the boot sectors of hard disks. Instead, network viruses infect the memory of client computers, forcing them to flood the network with traffic, which can cause slowdowns and even complete network failure. Because network viruses remain in memory, they are often undetectable by conventional file I/O based scanning methods.

The OfficeScan firewall works with the Common Firewall Pattern to identify and block network viruses. See About the OfficeScan Firewall for details.

Others

"Others" include viruses/malware not categorized under any of the virus/malware types.

See also: