Antivirus Software: Why It Isn’t Enough for Your Business

Antivirus software is a form of defense that protects your business from cybercrime. Without it, your devices are at risk of becoming infected with malware. This danger is especially pressing due to the increasingly intelligent threats presenting challenges to existing antivirus softwares. 

It’s apparent that software alone isn’t enough to protect your business from these advancing threats. You need to make an informed decision about the purchase of cybersecurity products for your business. Here’s why antivirus alone isn’t enough.

Typical Antivirus Software

Traditional antivirus products are installed on individual devices and work by periodically scanning your computer, comparing files against malware that it recognizes, threats that it was programmed to thwart. Antivirus will recognize malicious files based on a signature that the threat has. Antivirus also uses other methods to notice suspicious patterns of behavior or file structures, even if the threat in question was previously unknown. 

Your antivirus software scans your computer at scheduled intervals to identify risks. You can also run a scan on your computer or a specified file, CD, or flash drive at any point. It will then remove any malicious code that it finds and give you an overview of the overall health of the device. 

Unfortunately, more than 60,000 new pieces of malware are created every day. This means that the providers of antivirus have to constantly update their list of offenders if they’re going to offer proper protection. But, their efforts are in vain unless you do your part, too; your antivirus is only as strong as its latest update. If you don’t download the updates as soon as they are available, your device is at higher risk of being infected. 

Virus and Malware

Unless your antivirus software is constantly updating, after hours in order to avoid downtime, it’s likely that cybercriminals can get around software-based solutions. Threats are changing and advancing all the time, so your protection needs to as well. Software without regular updates will be limited in its ability to protect your devices and will mainly be able to identify and stop malware that it has seen before and is equipped to defeat. 

Antivirus Response Times

Although antivirus may efficiently take out recognizable threats, its response to new threats are too slow to be effective. It can take a number of hours for antivirus software to catch, identify, and completely remove a new threat. This is too much time to leave your system exposed to damage and breaches. By the time your software has removed the threat, it has probably already done damage. 

All Devices Are Vulnerable

In the modern workplace, sensitive information isn’t just stored on desktop computers anymore. It’s also stored on your employee’s phones, tablets, and other devices. There are a lot of opportunities for hackers to infiltrate these devices, too, so you need to protect these as well, which basic antivirus will not do.

With the influx of remote working, staff members use company devices outside of the office more than ever, often on public networks. When used in the office, you have control over who can use your network, but in public, you might be exposing your devices to being accessed by others on the same network. 

Fake networks, disguised as public WiFi, are a common way that hackers breach simple security measures in place on people’s devices. If you’re using a public network, cybercriminals can easily monitor your online activity, including accessing sensitive or personal information.

Antivirus Software Is Important, But Not Enough

For proper cybersecurity, you need a layered approach to your security. This is the best way to protect your data. Combine your expertise and other software combined with the expertise and advanced knowledge of a managed service provider.

At Total IT, we offer a range of network security services. We will proactively protect your IT network, so you’re always ahead of cyber attackers. We can offer expert consultation, so you can feel confident that you’re protected against ransomware, viruses, spam, malware, and other threats. Our comprehensive network monitoring services will ensure that your network is never left unprotected.

Our services also include complete data backup solutions to guarantee that you don’t lose a single file and employee guidance through support to make sure that your staff knows how to spot cybersecurity threats. With our services you can:

• Protect customer data. Customer data is crucial. If something compromises or loses your data, you have a big problem. With strong protection, you don’t have to worry about it.
• Guard your reputation. Network security breaches are very bad news. No business owner wants the bad press. Keep your reputation safe.
• Enjoy peace of mind. When you know your data is protected, you can concentrate on other things.