Comparative Performance Analysis of Anti-virus Software

Abstract

The threats and damages posed by malwares these days are alarming as Anti-virus vendors tend to combat the menace of malwares by the design of Anti-Virus software. This software also has tremendous impact on the performance of the computer system which in turn can become vulnerability for malware attacks. Anti-Virus (anti-malware) software is a computer program used to detects, prevents and deletes files infected by malwares from communicating devices by scanning. A virus is a malware which replicates itself by copying its code into other computer programs or software. It can perform harmful task on affected host computer such as processors time, accessing private information, corrupting and deleting files. This research carry out malware evasion and detection techniques and then focuses on the comparative performance analysis of some selected Anti-Virus software (Avast, Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Norton) using a VMware. Quick, full and custom scans and other parameters were used. Based on the analysis of the selected anti-virus software, the parameters that offers the utmost performance considering malware detection, removal rate, memory usage of the installed antivirus, and the interface launch time is considered the best.