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Antivirus and Antimalware

Malware represents one of the most common methods adversaries use to compromise networks, making anti-malware protection an essential control across all enterprise devices. This content covers what malware and viruses are, how anti-malware solutions work, and how organizations manage endpoint protection at scale.

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About this video

Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption, damage, or unauthorized access, and it represents one of the most prevalent attack vectors used against modern networks. A virus is a specific category of malware that works by injecting its code into legitimate programs, spreading through systems as those programs execute. Because the threat landscape extends well beyond viruses alone, the term anti-malware more accurately describes the full scope of what modern endpoint protection solutions are designed to detect and block. Effective defense requires anti-malware software deployed not just on end-user devices, but across servers, firewalls, and every other networked asset. Operating systems like Windows include built-in tools such as Windows Defender, which has matured significantly and offers meaningful protection for many environments. However, organizations operating at an enterprise scale typically need a centralized management solution — often described as a single pane of glass — that allows security teams to monitor protection status, push updates, and respond to detections across all devices from one unified platform. Ensuring that protection is not only installed but actively running and up to date is a fundamental requirement of any sound endpoint security posture.

What you'll learn

Distinguish between malware and viruses, and explain the role of anti-malware software in protecting network endpoints

What's covered

Anti-Malware Protection

Malware vs. Virus
- Malware Defined
- Virus is Malware Type
- Installs into Programs
Why Protection Needed
- Adversaries Hack Networks
- Control Systems at Risk
Where to Install
- Firewalls
- Servers
- All Devices
Anti-Malware Solutions
- Windows Defender
- Enterprise Single Pane
- Must Be Enabled
Terminology Clarification
- Anti-Virus vs. Anti-Malware
- Anti-Malware Covers All

Key terms

Malware: Software specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a system.
Virus: Malicious code that attaches itself to legitimate programs and replicates when executed.
Endpoint: Any device that connects to a network, including computers, smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices.
Antivirus: Software designed to detect, prevent, and remove malicious software from a system.
Anti-Malware: Software designed to detect, prevent, and remove the full spectrum of malicious software threats from a system, encompassing viruses and all other malware types.

Topics

Malware Antivirus Endpoint Protection Threat Detection Cybersecurity Enterprise Security

Transcript

A big way that adversaries use to be able to hack into networks and control systems are viruses and malware. So we need something that detects those viruses and malware.

Malware is just any software intentionally designed to cause disruption. A virus is a specific type of malware that installs itself into other programs. So we see some code here that gets installed into another program.

Where It Gets Installed

We want devices on our network that have antivirus and anti-malware. In fact, we install things like this on our firewall, on our servers, on all of our devices. We want something that detects these viruses and malware.

So we'll want to install some sort of anti-malware on the machine, or make sure whatever is on the machine is enabled, because there are some — like Windows machines have Windows Defender, that's doing pretty good nowadays at catching these viruses and this malware. But whatever the case may be, if we're working with enterprise level solutions, we probably want to have some sort of single pane of glass, some sort of way to manage this all together. Either way, we need to make sure that our machines have this software installed and up and running.

A Note on the Name

Now, I'll tell you a little bit about a pet peeve of mine. You'll see some sources call it antivirus. I think this is because traditionally this is what we called it, but it really is more anti-malware. Malware is the full spectrum of things. You'll see a lot of sources call it antivirus/anti-malware, which I think is just redundant, because antivirus is included in malware — a virus is a type of malware. So anti-malware, in my opinion, covers it all.

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