Effective marketing campaigns have convinced users that antivirus and anti-malware applications are an all-in-one solution to safeguarding data, both when it is stored locally on a PC, and when it is transmitted over the internet. These unlucky consumers are putting their information at risk when browsing unsecured over the internet. In this post, we’ll discuss the fallacy of this idea and offer a better solution in its place.

What Does an Antivirus Program Actually Do?

Let’s first clarify the function of antivirus applications and discuss what they are useful for. An antivirus or anti-malware program is a software tool that is installed locally on a PC and is used to protect the files on that computer. It scans the filesystem of a device and compares the files to what it knows a virus looks like. This baseline for comparison, called a “signature,” is how the tool determines what is malicious or not. Antivirus programs are frequently updated, sometimes multiple times a day, with new signatures as malware evolves. An anti-malware program will scan the PC’s files either automatically or upon demand, and compare them against the new signatures, and if a match is identified, that file is either deleted or “quarantined” into a safe environment.

For the sake of this topic, it would be useful to now discuss what an antivirus program does NOT do. Most antimalware solutions will not monitor internet sessions, scan destination websites, or compare network traffic against known virus definitions. It is not usually able to watch network traffic for incoming attacks and is only able to scan a file once it is written to the hard drive, at which point it’s usually too late to prevent an attack. What this means is that an antivirus program is only useful for scanning local files, and should not be relied upon to protect data in real-time on the internet.

What Should I Use in Addition to an Antivirus Program?

We’d like to clarify that we are not advocating or suggesting that readers don’t use anti-malware tools at all – as a matter of fact, we recommend downloading and using a proven desktop tool by a trusted provider. Readers should be aware, though, that additional protections beyond antivirus are required to keep your data safe on the internet. When it comes to securing your data online, there is no better tool than a VPN to accomplish that task.

Unlike an antivirus program, a VPN creates a protected shell or tunnel between you and the destination website, utilizing strong encryption to ensure that your information cannot be read or accessed by an attacker. It does this by using the concept of “encapsulation,” which adds certain security measures onto the data packets before they are sent over an internet connection. The process of encryption transforms your plain-text data into “cipher text,” which is a random jumble of characters that cannot be read or decoded by an attacker.

To summarize, while antivirus tools have their place in protecting the files on your PC, they should not be relied upon to keep your data safe when browsing the internet. Network connections are susceptible to a completely different set of threats, and you must use tools that are specifically designed to combat these threats. Combine a trusted anti-malware program with industry-leading VPN software, and you can rest assured that your information will remain secure over the internet.