Antivirus software Wikipedia. For medications concerning biological viruses, see Antiviral. Clam. Tk, an open source antivirus based on the Clam. AV antivirus engine, originally developed by Tomasz Kojm in 2. Antivirus or anti virus software often abbreviated as AV, sometimes known as anti malware software, is computer software used to prevent, detect and remove malicious software. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. However, with the proliferation of other kinds of malware, antivirus software started to provide protection from other computer threats. In particular, modern antivirus software can protect from malicious browser helper objects BHOs, browser hijackers, ransomware, keyloggers, backdoors, rootkits, trojan horses, worms, malicious LSPs, dialers, fraudtools, adware and spyware. Some products also include protection from other computer threats, such as infected and malicious URLs, spam, scam and phishing attacks, online identity privacy, online banking attacks, social engineering techniques, advanced persistent threat APT and botnet. DDo. S attacks. 3Historyedit1. Although the roots of the computer virus date back as early as 1. Hungarian scientist John von Neumann published the Theory of self reproducing automata,4 the first known computer virus appeared in 1. Creeper virus. 5 This computer virus infected Digital Equipment Corporations DEC PDP 1. TENEX operating system. The Creeper virus was eventually deleted by a program created by Ray Tomlinson and known as The Reaper. Some people consider The Reaper the first antivirus software ever written it may be the case, but it is important to note that the Reaper was actually a virus itself specifically designed to remove the Creeper virus. The Creeper virus was followed by several other viruses. The first known that appeared in the wild was Elk Cloner, in 1. Apple II computers. In 1. 98. 3, the term computer virus was coined by Fred Cohen in one of the first ever published academic papers on computer viruses. Cohen used the term computer virus to describe a program that affect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a possibly evolved copy of itself. Hungarian security researcher Pter Szr a code that recursively replicates a possibly evolved copy of itself1. The first IBM PC compatible in the wild computer virus, and one of the first real widespread infections, was Brain in 1. From then, the number of viruses has grown exponentially. Most of the computer viruses written in the early and mid 1. That changed when more and more programmers became acquainted with computer virus programming and created viruses that manipulated or even destroyed data on infected computers. Before internet connectivity was widespread, computer viruses were typically spread by infected floppy disks. Antivirus software came into use, but was updated relatively infrequently. During this time, virus checkers essentially had to check executable files and the boot sectors of floppy disks and hard disks. However, as internet usage became common, viruses began to spread online. There are competing claims for the innovator of the first antivirus product. Microsoft Mobile Keyboard 6000 Troubleshooting Samsung. Possibly, the first publicly documented removal of an in the wild computer virus i. Vienna virus was performed by Bernd Fix in 1. Norton AntiVirus is an antimalware software developed and distributed by Symantec Corporation since 1991 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. Norton Antivirus Online Virus Scan' title='Norton Antivirus Online Virus Scan' />In 1. Andreas Lning and Kai Figge founded G Data Software and released their first antivirus product for the Atari ST platform. Dubiously, they later also produced Virus Construction Kits. In 1. 98. 7, the Ultimate Virus Killer UVK was also released. This was the de facto industry standard virus killer for the Atari ST and Atari Falcon, the last version of which version 9. April 2. 00. 4. citation needed In 1. United States, John Mc. Afee founded the Mc. Afee company now part of Intel Security2. Virus. Scan. 2. 8 Also in 1. Czechoslovakia, Peter Pako, Rudolf Hrub, and Miroslav Trnka created the first version of NOD antivirus. In 1. 98. 7, Fred Cohen wrote that there is no algorithm that can perfectly detect all possible computer viruses. Finally, at the end of 1. Flushot Plus by Ross Greenberg3. Anti. 4us by Erwin Lanting. In his OReilly book, Malicious Mobile Code Virus Protection for Windows, Roger Grimes described Flushot Plus as the first holistic program to fight MMC malicious mobile code. However, the kind of heuristic used by early AV engines was totally different from those used today. The first product with a heuristic engine resembling modern ones was F PROT in 1. Early heuristic engines were based on dividing the binary in different sections data section, code section in a legitimate binary, it usually starts always from the same location. Indeed, the initial viruses re organized the layout of the sections, or overrode the initial portion of section in order to jump to the very end of the file where malicious code was locatedonly going back to resume execution of the original code. This was a very specific pattern, not used at the time by any legitimate software, which represented an elegant heuristic to catch suspicious code. Other kinds of more advanced heuristics were later added, such as suspicious section names, incorrect header size, regular expressions, and partial pattern in memory matching. In 1. 98. 8, the growth of antivirus companies continued. In Germany, Tjark Auerbach founded Avira HBEDV at the time and released the first version of Anti. Vir named Luke Filewalker at the time. In Bulgaria, Dr. Vesselin Bontchev released his first freeware antivirus program he later joined FRISK Software. Also Frans Veldman released the first version of Thunder. Byte Antivirus, also known as TBAV he sold his company to Norman Safeground in 1. In Czechoslovakia, Pavel Baudi and Eduard Kuera started avast ALWIL Software and released their first version of avast In June 1. South Korea, Dr. Ahn Cheol Soo released its first antivirus software, called V1 he founded Ahn. Lab later in 1. 99. Finally, in the Autumn 1. United Kingdom, Alan Solomon founded S S International and created his Dr. Solomons Anti Virus Toolkit although he launched it commercially only in 1. Dr. Solomons company was acquired by Mc. Afee. In November 1. Panamerican University in Mexico City named Alejandro E. Carriles copyrighted the first antivirus software in Mexico under the name Byte Matabichos Byte Bugkiller to help solve the rampant virus infestation among students. Also in 1. 98. 8, a mailing list named VIRUS L3. BITNETEARN network where new viruses and the possibilities of detecting and eliminating viruses were discussed. Some members of this mailing list were Alan Solomon, Eugene Kaspersky Kaspersky Lab, Fririk Sklason FRISK Software, John Mc. Afee Mc. Afee, Luis Corrons Panda Security, Mikko Hyppnen F Secure, Pter Szr, Tjark Auerbach Avira and Dr. Vesselin Bontchev FRISK Software. In 1. 98. 9, in Iceland, Fririk Sklason created the first version of F PROT Anti Virus back in 1. FRISK Software only in 1. In the meanwhile, in United States, Symantec founded by Gary Hendrix in 1. Symantec antivirus for Macintosh SAM. SAM 2. 0, released March 1. SAM to intercept and eliminate new viruses, including many that didnt exist at the time of the programs release. In the end of the 1.