Malware Has Gotten Smarter. Here's How Your Antivirus Has, Too

Antivirus software is undergoing a major shift. Traditionally, antivirus software relied on matching files against databases of known malware signatures. But today's threats evolve too quickly for databases of known malware signatures to keep up reliably.

It might be helpful to think of it like this: Old antivirus software worked like a nightclub bouncer with a stack of photos of bad actors behind the counter. If a file matched a known malware signature, it got tossed out. If it didn’t, the bad actor usually walked right in wearing sunglasses and a fake mustache.

But now the software is monitoring behavior rather than just checking names at the door. To expand their predictive capabilities, many modern antivirus platforms are increasingly relying on machine learning, behavioral analysis and real-time monitoring to identify suspicious activity before a threat has been fully classified.

That means that, instead of only identifying known malware after it...

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