Carol:
For the past several years, cybersecurity experts have been moving their clients away from traditional antivirus software and deploying more advanced tools known as Next Generation Antivirus, or NGAV. Eric Hammond, who is our data center specialist, or manager here at MIS Solutions, is here to shine a light on NGAV and how it better protects businesses from modern-day threats.
Welcome, Eric.
Eric:
Thank you, Carol.
Carol:
Awesome. So, let’s start out by comparing old-school antivirus to Next Generation AV. What are the fundamental differences between the two in terms of how they detect threats?
Eric:
I think it’s easiest to understand the differences if you understand from a basic level how traditional antivirus works.
It’s very simple. It basically has a dictionary of known viruses, okay, and they call it signature-based. And what traditional antivirus would do is it would examine a file and look at its contents and say, hey, are any of the contents in my dictionary? if they are, then I know it’s something bad, and then we’re going to quarantine.
The problem comes in when this file contains something that’s not in the dictionary. Because it’s new, it’s a zero-day virus, right? The problem is that the traditional antivirus doesn’t know how to handle it. It just lets it go. You’re fine, carry on about your business, right? And so this is where NGAV really shines because it not only has a dictionary, so it can look for known viruses, right?
But it also predominantly looks at behavior. And so it looks to see, okay, are the actions being carried out by this file normal for this environment? And if they’re not, we’re going to stop the process. We’re not just going to quarantine the file. We’re actually going to stop the process. Those are the two differences.
And so it’s a much quicker resolution, and it doesn’t require as much input from an actual person, right? They don’t have to actually review all the quarantine files, right? NGAV is going to act independently of a human.
Carol:
All right. And, of course, here at MIS Solutions, most of our clients have NGAV. But there are still many businesses out there that rely on traditional antivirus. What would you say are some of the risks that they face by not upgrading to NGAV? And what are some of the misconceptions that might be preventing them from making this switch?
Eric:
Yeah, so, a couple of the risks. One, you’re at risk for not being able to renew your cyber insurance.
NGAV has become table stakes. In other words, it is the new normal baseline that you need to have. and it has replaced traditional antivirus in that regard. So you’re certainly in danger of not being able to renew your cyber if you don’t have NGAV. I would also say that just from a risk exposure perspective, you are greatly increasing your risk to these zero-day viruses the traditional antivirus, like we just talked about, doesn’t have the capabilities to handle, right?
And so from a business continuity, from an insurability standpoint, from the fact that you don’t want to get left behind either down the table stakes.
Carol:
Eric, very much for that information. And of course, if you’d like to learn how MIS Solutions can help keep your business protected, contact us at www.mis solutions. com. Thank you.
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