A Virus
Scanner is used for diagnosing the virus, to identify the problems early.
A scan should be run:
- On new programs and diskettes
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- When an integrity checker reports a mismatch
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- When a generic monitoring program sounds an alarm
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- When you receive an updated version of a scanner
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There are two types of scanners: 'Resident' and
'Heuristic'.
Some Resident scanners are McAfee's V-Shield, and F-PROT's VIRSTOP. And some Heuristic
scanners are the Analyse option in F-PROT, TBAV's TbScan and ChkBoot.
One should ensure that the version being used is most recent.
A scanner could show two types of errors:
| 1. |
False Positive: It
is a type of error in which the anti-virus software wrongly detects the presence of a
virus, when actually the object is clean. |
| 2. |
False Negative: It
is a type of error in which the anti-virus software wrongly fails to indicate the presence
of a virus. |
Both are undesirable though a false negative is more
harmful. They occur due to the virus being new or heavily modified.
|
