But among the simplified solutions, that offer only essential anti-malware functionality, it is also hard to make a decision. We recommend you to use GridinSoft Anti-Malware, and let me give you 15 reasons to choose it.

1. High detection rates

The most important quality of any anti-malware program is its ability to correctly detect and remove the hazards. It can have a bunch of other positives, but the main function is obliged to be as good as possible. And GridinSoft Anti-Malware shows perfect protection against a wide range of threats present in the wild. All kinds of adware, trojan viruses, malicious scripts and questionable programs – they shall not pass the security layer created by GridinSoft Anti-Malware. Such a high level of protection is available thanks to the advanced scanning system and diligent work of malware analysts, who upload the database updates as often as possible.

2. Advanced detection systems

GridinSoft Anti-Malware manages 3 different detection mechanisms – the “classic” database-backed detection, heuristic engine and neural network. The former does not need any introduction, since it is the alpha and omega of all antiviruses. But let’s have a closer look at heuristic and neural detection mechanisms.

3. High resource efficiency

PC performance is an object of concern of the vast majority of users. Installing any software that is about to run in the background means risking to have significant decrease of the PC speed. GridinSoft developers paid additional attention to that aspect, in order to make their program as resource-efficient as possible, even having your proactive features on. You will barely feel the impact of this program running in the background – it takes almost less than 1% of CPU power and ~300 MB RAM. Compared to things like Windows Defender, which consumes 5-10% of CPU and up to 1GB RAM, it is literally nothing.

4. Simple interface

Have you ever struggled with a huge number of tabs in the programs? Some of the antiviruses, especially ones that have a lot of unnecessary functions, have this problem. But GridinSoft Anti-Malware is the other story – it offers a clear interface with all important functions and information available at the glance. Functions and settings are logically divided on categories, corresponding to their purpose, and the detailed info (scan logs or update changelogs) is available in just several clicks.

5. Full-time support

Having problems on your PC? Think something is broken inside of your operating system? Struggle to make a decision in our program? Support specialists will help you to solve any case, at any moment of time. GridinSoft Anti-Malware licence features the 24/7 multilingual tech support, so you will definitely receive the proper answer. For tough cases, the manager can offer extended support – via the remote connection. Such an approach will definitely help you to solve the issue.

6. High compatibility

Even in 2022, people still use old operating systems for certain reasons. Some people don’t want to update because of the hardware requirements, some dislike the new appearance of the OS, and some users don’t want to lose the compatibility with the programs they use. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will perfectly fit all of these categories, offering the support for a wide range of Windows versions. It will successfully run on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10 and 11 – a timeline of more than 20 years of software development. And on any of these versions the security tool from GridinSoft will show an excellent efficiency.

Moreover, GridinSoft Anti-Malware also works perfectly with other antimalware and antivirus software. For people who want to have several security solutions running together, it will be a perfect addition. You will never see any detection conflicts, and the modest resource consumption will not interfere with the other programs’ efficiency.

7. Setup flexibility

Despite the easy-to-use interface, GridinSoft Anti-Malware offers a wide range of settings that will fit different users. Scanning schedule, use of heuristic rules during scans, ability to adjust the startup settings, and manage the active modules of the proactive protection – that will be enough to personalise the experience as much as possible. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is designed with an idea to give the users the right to choose the program mode it wants.

8. Reasonable price

Most of the antivirus solutions contain a huge amount of functions, which are about to be paid for regardless of the fact you use them or not. When it comes to GridinSoft Anti-Malware, you pay only for the functions you will definitely use – exactly, the genuine anti-malware software features. For an annual licence, you have to pay only $40 – or less, if you will use a discount that is available multiple times a year. You will not find the same functionality & efficiency combination for this money.

9. Nothing excessive

In the previous paragraph, we mentioned the services and features available in GridinSoft Anti-Malware. It does not feature keychain, additional traffic controlling or VPN service. In the developers’ opinion, users can decide if they want to use one, and must not obligatory pay for them. On the other hand, you receive a full bunch of various features that are really needed for the anti-malware software – a full-featured proactive protection, quarantine, and various tools for system recovery. Isn’t that a fair swap?

10. Constant database updates

The efficiency of anti-malware programs is measured by their detection quality. That is, exactly, the most important part of the program – low detection capabilities make it just a useless app. But even the most advanced detection databases & mechanisms are getting outdated with time, and their detection rates fall inexorably. New malware appears each day, and to retain the effectiveness, you should update the databases as often as possible. GridinSoft Anti-Malware receives database updates each hour, so even the most fresh malware will be taken into account pretty quickly.

11. Trial and Demo mode

Any purchase must be rated correspondingly, after weighting all pros and cons for yourself. That’s why trial mode in GridinSoft Anti-Malware makes it possible for you to test it from all aspects. 6 days of full functionality within the trial licence is enough to feel all qualities of this program, get familiar with the interface and have some real-world testing.

But even in the situation when you did not purchase the licence, you are still able to scan your device for threats in Demo mode. It is able to detect the malware, but cannot remove it, and lacks proactive protection features. This mode provides the testing capabilities as well – but can’t show you the real potential of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

12. System applications repairing capabilities

Modern malware pretty often exploits the operating system vulnerabilities in order to conduct its activities. When it is removed, the touched system elements remain damaged, and it is very important to fix them. Contrary to the third party apps, that may be changed as well, modified system elements may cause errors and even system failure. GridinSoft Anti-Malware is able to effectively find and repair the system elements that were damaged by malware, saving you from manual recovery.

13. Browser reset functions

Nasty malware types that show us advertisements of different forms, like adware and browser hijackers, generally act through modifying your browser settings. They invade each web browser you have on your device, to show you the ads wherever you go. Even after removing viruses from your PC, your browsers will keep the changes made by malware. GridinSoft Anti-Malware has the ability to revert these changes in all browsers in a single click – thanks to the Reset Browser Settings function. A single click – and your browser is as good as new.

14. Multi-layer on-run protection

On-run protection, also known as proactive protection, is a very useful feature that controls the application activity on your computer. Each launch of the application and each opened folder are monitored by the anti-malware program. GridinSoft Anti-Malware checks-up processes and directories with a three-part system – databases, heuristics and neural network. Using all three systems makes it impossible to miss the malware – it will definitely be detected and defused, even if it was not active at the moment.

The On-Run Protection function in GridinSoft Anti-Malware can have two additional functions. Besides the basic scanning of all activities, it also can act as a network monitor, and removable devices scanner. The former will be very effective in blocking the unwanted websites, that may expose your PC to a hazard. Removable Device scanning is a function that checks all of the connected storage devices, both removable drives or USB flash drives. That will safeguard your computer from the intrusion from most of the typical malware spreading vectors.

15. Quarantine

Sometimes, neither the program nor the user is sure that the detected file is dangerous. To give the time gap and chance to choose, GridinSoft Anti-Malware features threat quarantine. That is, exactly, the separated area on the disk, where the blocked files are stored until the decision is made, or the 30-day term is expired. Items in Quarantine are impossible to launch and interact with the rest of the system, so even dangerous stuff does not put your system into a hazard.

Try out GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You have seen a lot of arguments that prove the efficiency and convenience of GridinSoft Anti-Malware. This security tool has great functionality for a reasonable price. The features this program has make it really superior to its contemporaries. Having a try of this application for 6 days will surely dot all the i’s. And the support managers will be glad to answer any of the questions regarding the program functionality.

The post 15 Reasons to Choose GridinSoft Anti-Malware appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

In the context of network threats, many users still manage to neglect suggestions to protect their computers with security software. Choosing an antivirus solution among the many presented on the market, installing it, configuring it, and eventually tolerating a part of system resources spent on its work seems overkill and not worth the effort. We can only remind that safety measures always seem excessive until they stand in good stead.

In the current article, we will help you sort out one thing: what happens to a computer infected with malware and what is the point of using an antivirus.

What is malware and what does it do?

First of all, you should understand what malware is. “Malware” is a portmanteau for “malicious software;” it is a name for harmful programs. Malware is one of many types of threats. There are also scripts, which are not executable files, and there are other network-based threats, such as phishing, that are not directly related to programs that infect the victim’s computer.

Now let us see what malware does from the standpoint of the attacker. The list of damages types below may not be exhaustive, but it summarizes the harm hackers usually inflict by malware nowadays and the reason for such their activities.

Data theft

Hackers use the spyware (a category of malware) to carry out data thefts. These can be completely different programs, united by only one thing – their spy function. For example, both a keylogger, a program that records all user’s keystrokes, and a spying rogue browser, in terms of their goals, constitute the same group – spyware. These types of programs differ in their abilities. Some simply transfer your browsing history to third parties, others, as already mentioned, can record keystrokes, and others are generally able to intercept your traffic.

All of the above-mentioned actions require the CPU’s background work. So, in addition to the actual harm brought to you, spyware slows down your computer.

The worst thing that can happen to the user from the spyware attack is identity theft and its grave consequences. Stolen financial credentials are also a danger of losing all the money from the account.

Cryptocurrency mining

There are special programs either injected into systems as Trojans (disguised as something else) or downloaded with the help of other Trojans (so-called downloaders) whose sole purpose is to direct the resources of the infected device to mining cryptocurrency (for other people, understandably.) Since mining coins is a cryptographic work, the miner malware delegates this task to the victim’s computer, and the CPU performs the part of the work that it can handle.

The visible consequences of such invasion are a running speed decrease on the infected machine and the Internet connection becoming slower.

Involvement in a Botnet

Botnets are networks of computers with specific malware installed on them that allows a remote hacker to command them all at once and thereby benefit from their quantity. The entire army of computers under hackers’ control is a different story compared to one machine hacked. It allows a new and much broader scope of action. For example, DDoS attacks involving thousands of bots would be simply impossible to pull off without a botnet technology. The same is true for automatic comment posting used in politics widely. Another activity of bots can be the further spreading of the botnet. A large botnet nowadays can amount to tens of millions of infected machines.
As for the users of the infected machines, all the botnet activities take place unbeknownst to them. The only tangible effect is the overloaded CPU and mysterious Internet traffic.

Advertisement flooding

Adware is a wide range of software that includes overt malware and so-called potentially unwanted applications (PUPs.) Adware, if malicious, turns your browsing experience into something like the Las Vegas Strip: bright flashing banners pop up all the time, blocking the view of the webpage you are trying to read. Moreover, the adware can insert ad links into the plain text on the web pages you view to trigger your clicking. And some adware can even affect your offline work – the banners can appear just anywhere within the OS, not only in the browser.

Many types of programs fall into the adware category according to their function. These can be easy-to-remove browser extensions, rogue browsers, various “handy” applications, etc. However, some adware executables don’t show themselves and appear as some undistinguished process in your Task Manager.

Adware effects are self-evident, and they encourage sanitizing the computer. But you must clear the adware if you were unlucky to catch it. Its presence is fraught with other malware infections.

Encryption of data files

One of the nastiest malware types is ransomware. After this program lands on the victim’s device, it encrypts all data files of preset types and leaves a ransom note to the victim. The encoded files get an additional extension, and access to them becomes impossible. The ransom note reads how and how much the victims should transfer to the racketeers in cryptocurrency to get their files back. Cybercriminals usually send their victim a decryption key after they get paid so that their next victims pay as well and still trust the scheme.

Ransomware attacks are the first viable profit-generating malware-involving scheme. Annual profits of the racketeers amount to millions of dollars. Nowadays, ransomware is rampant.

Taking control over the system

One class of malware is considered extremely dangerous because, if employed correctly, it allows hackers to do virtually anything with the system and control it as if they were its administrators. These programs are called rootkits, and their most threatening capacity is to establish a backdoor, a detour of access limitations, allowing a hacker to control the system by giving commands from its infected core. The damage from an attack using such means is limited only to the attackers’ goals.

What happens when your device gets infected by malware?

Let us briefly summarize the symptoms of a malware infection regardless of the particular threat you might be facing. If you have read the previous section attentively, you can even guess some malware types by symptoms alone.

• Slow PC and crashing programs are expectable effects of many malware kinds. If a program (or several of them) works in a background unbeknownst to you, especially if it is a heavy resource-sucking process like crypto-currency mining, your PC’s productivity will be tangibly affected by it.
• Lack of storage – some malicious infections imply taking your HDD space for their purposes, leaving not enough for your everyday operations.
• Slow Internet. Even if CPU productivity remains sufficient, your Internet connection will feel less effective. Of course! Many malware types generate their own traffic that uses your bandwidth.
• Spam reports. If your email and social media acquaintances begin complaining that you send them spam via direct messages or email, be sure that your account hijacking most likely happened with the help of malware.
• Advertising pop-ups and applications you never installed are typical and intended consequences of adware infestation. Besides the danger of clicking on adware-fetched banners, aren’t they just inconvenient?
• Weird extensions added to data files. Well, here we are. It’s ransomware. All encrypted files are inaccessible, and you need to pay if you want them back. So much for carelessness on the Internet.

How to avoid getting infected by malware?

1. Stay vigilant! And make sure your personnel is acquainted with the basic security rules if we talk about a workgroup. A lot of things depend upon users themselves. Hackers often introduce malware into systems via human vulnerabilities like inattentiveness and gullibility. Social engineering is an integral part of cyber warfare. For example, the implementation of phishing attacks does not require malware at all. However, infection of the targeted machine with malware may well be a goal of a phishing attack.
2. Do not click on unknown email attachments, links, or banners. At least think twice or even thrice before you do. The easiest way for malware to get onto a victim’s machine is via scripts, a malicious code fitted into files or websites users voluntarily download and access. You just have to realize whence the threat comes – from deceptive emails, messages, and advertising.
3. Update your operating system regularly. Not only will updates keep the OS in-built security ready to face the latest threats, but they will also stop hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities that often occur in between update procedures. Antivirus software, by the way, also works better when the system is up-to-date.
4. Use 2-factor authentication wherever it is possible. Google, for example, being aware of the threat of social-engineered hacker attacks, made the 2FA mandatory. The feature simply makes you confirm your identity on your other device when accessing an online account.
5. Install a trustworthy antivirus program. Everything said above is valid, and it works. But it is simply unrealistic to hold out on vigilance alone. All the precautions we have listed give the desired result only in cooperation with a reliable security program. Further, we will reveal how anti-malware software works and what it does.

How can antivirus help?

We were going to share the ideas on benefits of using malware protection. But it seems we were So what does an antivirus do? Let’s take Gridinsoft Malicious Software Removal as an example. This program offers triple protection.

First comes the so-called On-Run protection. The program registers everything “new” that appears on your machine, and before any incoming file could harm, the program scans it. If the program recognizes the file as malicious or unwanted, it immediately sends the item to quarantine. Further, the user can decide what to do with it – delete or restore.

Another function of anti-malware is Internet protection. It blocks hazardous websites and warns you about suspicious ones. Websites are recognized as dangerous after the detection of malicious scripts in them, while the absence of an SSL certificate is a ground for considering them suspicious. These blocks and warnings are overridable but very handy in most cases.

The most time-consuming but necessary feature in case of infection is a deep scan. You can choose options for scanning: the more encompassing scan will take more time, but the probability of malware eradication will be higher. Certain types of malware can be detected and removed only with the help of such deep scanning.

Parting wishes

Combining different virus detection methods in its architecture, the Gridinsoft product demonstrates versatility and effectiveness. It performs well on home and corporate machines. You can use this software as a primary security system for your device or as an additional antivirus scanner. With its efficacy, the solution is cost-effective.

As for the benefits of using antivirus in general, they are undeniable. The danger seems far-fetched before the first contact with its source. And cybersecurity is no exception. Nevertheless, your doubts will vanish at the first encounter with any dangerous Trojan, hopefully, removed by a security program.

The post Benefits Of Using Malware Protection appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.

Just read recent news headlines from the IT field. A whole cyber war even unfolds for the first time in history, to say the least. Ransomware ravages like never before. Various banking trojans lurking out there in the corners of the internet and phishing, smishing, and other species from flora and fauna of the cyber world — all for your data. But no, we are not on the brink of a cyber apocalypse. Yet.

Now seriously. You have first to understand one and the most obvious thing is that you can’t just use all the technologies now available without someone parallelly trying to exploit it for illegal purposes. Cybercrimes all around the world have become much more lucrative illegal activities than robbing banks or selling drugs on the corner of the street.

Old and new kinds of crimes together with workplaces steadily moving onto the internet to enjoy more wide and bright possibilities. And you as a diligent digital citizen should first of all attend to your security and safety in the particular environment. The irony is also that you can be just one click away from some ransomware operator or banking trojan. Of course, you should be ready in case they show an interest in you.

Below, we explain in every particular reason example why it’s most crucial to have an antivirus solution on board in case some cyber threat does arise.

Companies and enterprises save up on money with antiviruses

Let’s just say they can save up a lot if it’s a ransomware attack that has been thwarted, for example. But talking about more down-to-earth threats, a company can avoid much fewer problems with its cybersecurity by simply having some antivirus in place.

We can say these even without any statistics to mention that daily, workers at some companies can encounter up to ten on average malicious emails and it’s good cyber training of your employees if they can recognize the threat and report it to your IT team. But why do cybercriminals still do what they do even if we seems to know everything about their moves?

It’s because the human factor is still in place and it will be unless we replace human workers with robots. But where a worker has missed the signs of maliciousness the antivirus solution surely won’t miss. It’s a nice kind of balance when your workers have the general knowledge of potential cyber threats paired together with reliable and trustworthy antivirus solutions.

To compare sums of money you could spend on remediating the consequences of a cyber security breach and those spent on buying a license for an antivirus solution they vary significantly. On the internet, you can find various statistics on how much this or that company lost in revenue due to cyber-attacks and their consequences. To add here companies and enterprises are becoming more common targets for threat actors than individuals.

Apart from your computer other pieces of network hardware need antivirus security protection as well

Even if you own a small company it also needs protection not only of its PCs but other usual components of workplaces like VPNs, network attached storage (NAS), servers and remote desktops. All of them are important parts of any company’s workflow and when one of the elements is out of the flow it significantly can hinder the operations.

Basically, on any entry point you should have the security protection in place as no one can see and it’s hard to predict in advance where the next strike will happen. If some threat actors have a more than usual interest in any potential victim they will find their ways, but in vain as they should face the counterattack by an antivirus solution.

To add more to the paragraph it needs to be said that in recent years due to the pandemic when everything massively went online one of the most popular attack vectors became remote desktop. Because of its functions, remote desktops prove themselves to be quite an ideal thing for threat actors to exploit. The most well-known instances of cyber attacks on companies involved the abuse of remote desktops.

However one must add that an antivirus alone can’t guarantee one hundred percent protection if there are no general cyber hygiene rules your employees follow. You also need to have firewalls so that threat actors cannot easily get access to you via the already mentioned remote desktop. Make it for everyone a rule to have strong and complex passwords as well as usernames.

You also need antivirus protection at home

Don’t forget about the security of your home PC. With the beginning of the pandemic, many people started working remotely and usually individuals are easier targets for threat actors meaning more attacks are specifically directed at them. The most common thing threat actors target their victims with is phishing emails.

These malicious and fake correspondences often have attachments with malware that will initiate the next stage of an attack like delivering the payload of some banking trojan. Sometimes threat actors attach malicious documents like spreadsheets with malicious macros in place. Once a victim opens the received email the embedded malware gets into action.

And not only malicious emails lurking out there for their victim, but other kinds of no less nefarious entities trying their best at succeeding in their actions like info stealers, keyloggers, and browser hijackers; you just could have no less.

Antivirus can protect you from potential dangers coming from removable devices

Quite a portion of threats can also come from removable devices that so many of us still use. Removable media pose much threat to users and their devices even more than the other devices under threat can. Not only that the removable devices often the carriers of several malware they can also be targets for threats from infected PCs.

Because they are a very convenient choice for cybercriminals and also because of their more obvious weakness and susceptibility against malware and viruses, many companies and even individuals already said no to removable media. Many large enterprises and companies have explicitly forbidden the usage and storage of any work-related data on them.

But the complete ban on these particular devices doesn’t concern all average home users and there are still many people who prefer to store their valuable and sensitive information on removable media. For many people, cloud storage seems more unreliable than removable devices.

In any way you happen to use these devices don’t forget to make regular scans of them as well. Have your antivirus solution enabled once you insert the device into your computer because the infection gets to you from the removable media once you connect it to your machine? An antivirus will be in a much need especially if you use someone else’s removable media.

The rule is just simple any removable media you connect can be infected and then it can infect you, or the case might be that you connect your own or someone else’s removable device to your computer and you already have some infection, then all data on that inserted device is also under more than sure danger.

If it’s some ransomware that has begun encryption of your files then when you insert a removable device files on it will also get encrypted. And these are more reasons to add to why you need an antivirus solution.

Antivirus helps you to prolong your computer’s lifespan

It should be an obvious thing to understand that without getting your computer infected the machine can no longer serve you. It won’t need a repairman to mend the consequences of the malware attack. You won’t waste any time to bring your computer from service and back, and before that spend some time figuring out by yourself the first symptoms of malware infection.

Not to mention that malware causes some additional troubles like stealing or distorting your data, messing with your browser work, or even exploiting your stolen credentials to conduct further assaults on other people.

Specialists from the field say it is that having an antivirus on board will make your computer live longer and work with no less efficiency. It’s understandable because when malware gets onto your machine it can’t but interfere with the normal workflow of the targeted computer.

If it’s a wiper kind of malware once it gets onto the machine it completely makes the computer wholly inoperable, because how are you supposed to work with a computer that has all its hard disk wiped? The other kinds of malware work no less diligently.

But all the negative consequences of malware infection can be remediated when you have an antivirus in play. Some of the products offer you not only standard things like detection, deletion, and quarantine of files but the restoration of your browser settings, and Windows host files. So that if you have post-infection symptoms on your computer you can mitigate that.

Conclusions

Beyond the reasons mentioned, the antivirus can also offer you additional functions like parental control, website access control, and blocking spam/ads. Some of these offers can play an important role in your cyber world. Many antivirus vendors these days include such optional variants in the main package and it’s hard not to say that parents need parental control options with today’s ubiquitous use of the internet particularly because of schools taking place online.

No less importance can be assigned to block spam/ads option when these things misclicked often lead to full-blown infection. Another thing spam – when an antivirus program can detect if an email is malicious and prevent the cyber security breach. You don’t always notice something that can be an obvious sign of danger for specifically designed for the matter software. If you can click away an ad that suddenly pops up on your screen and be safe, but with spam you can be tricked into believing you received a package tracking email from Amazon, for example.

With all that being said it’s also right to say that even if you are confident with yourself and your actions in the cyber world sometimes it’s better to give the task to detect and remove something specifically here to help you with these.

The post Antivirus Is Important! Advantages Of Using appeared first on Gridinsoft Blog.