Features to Look for in an Internet Security Suite

It is very hard to decide which internet security suite provides the best protection for your system as there are many available in the market with different features. While antivirus is the basic attribute that protects against malicious affects, firewall is equally important in monitoring networking traffic and preventing inappropriate access from outside the network. Hence before making the purchase, it is essential to make a little research on various security suites and their features, and decide the suitable one based on the requirement. To make it convenient to you, we have put together some important features that usually be included in the security suites -

Protected features

When we say protected features we are talking broadly about emails & system protection. Most of the security suites come with automatic email scan, message protection and system auto clean features. Email scan automatically checks all the emails, gives protection from spam messages and blocks the message if any threat is anticipated from a virus. The system auto clean feature keeps checking for viruses from time to time and removes it immediately once it is identified on your computer.

Security suites offer various types of protection for networks & computers like -

• Virus protection: Viruses are most commonly known dangerous attackers & they do all types of damage to your computer. Mostly users acquire virus from email scam, phishing websites etc which drastically slows down the system speed & deletes all files. The anitvirus feature in this software keeps the system secure from all types of viruses and worms that can cause huge damage to your computer by infecting it badly.
• Spyware & Identity theft protection: Spyware is a type of malware which collects users private information including personal data, security numbers etc. It can change computer settings, can secretly steal the files & record the user activity. The features of anti-spyware are very essential as it not only warns you ahead about the spyware present but also protects you from identity theft.
• Spam Protection: Spam is annoying method when you are attacked with emails & ads as a result of virus that is stored on your computer. Email protection feature scans both inbound & outbound messages, checks for malicious attachments and blocks it automatically once it is identified.
• Firewall protection: Firewall acts like a barrier preventing malicious traffic from reaching your network, so that no unauthorized person will be able to access your computer. Sometimes, the firewall protection feature also includes anti-spyware and anti-malware, acting against malicious software & hacking. Any software with secured network features will continuously monitor the internet activities of different applications, and protects against the vulnerability of inappropriate access.
• Anti malware: Anti-malware is about getting protected from viruses, trojans, viruses, spyware and other malicious software that are designed to damage your system or destroy your data. Some of the anitvirus tools may not include the complete malware protection that can include anti-trojan, anti-worm, anti-phishing etc. Hence, you need to be extra cautious while evaluating the software and be very specific to check against your requirements.
• Miscellaneous features: Most of the security suites come with few added features like file shredder, operating system patches, signature updates, anti-rootkit etc. Some of them may not be really important but having them in your system will increase the security and improve the performance.

Check for scanning types

Security software comes with various scanning types in which a file can be scanned safely – some are done automatically while others require manual intervention.

On-Access scanning - In this method files get scanned continuously as soon as they are downloaded into the system.

Heuristic analysis scan - This technique is designed to determine newly recognized viruses so that when a new virus is identified in your system it scans automatically to find the unknown virus.

On-Demand scan - It is the feature where one can schedule the scan when the system is not in use or if the computer is acting abnormal and needs security check.

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Vijay Kumar is experienced author; interested in writing blogs and articles on Smb methodologies and concepts.