Mega antivirus

They both refer to software designed to detect, protect against, and remove malicious software. It needs to be initiated by an unsuspecting user. Triggering a virus can be as simple as opening a malicious email attachment malspam , launching an infected program, or viewing an ad on a malicious site adware. Once that happens, the virus tries to spread to other systems on the computer's network or in the user's list of contacts.

It must be self-replicating. If the software doesn't self-replicate, it's not a virus. This process of self-replication can happen by modifying or completely replacing other files on the user's system. Either way, the resulting file must show the same behavior as the original virus.

Computer viruses have been around for decades. Early viruses occurred on pre-personal computer platforms in the s. However, the history of modern viruses begins with a program called Elk Cloner , which started infecting Apple II systems in Disseminated via infected floppy disks, the virus itself was harmless, but it spread to all disks attached to a system.

It spread so quickly that most cybersecurity experts consider it the first large-scale computer virus outbreak in history. Early viruses like Elk Cloner were mostly designed as pranks. Their creators were in it for notoriety and bragging rights. However, by the early s, adolescent mischief had evolved into harmful intent.

PC users experienced an onslaught of viruses designed to destroy data, slow down system resources, and log keystrokes also known as a keylogger. The need for countermeasures led to the development of the first antivirus software programs. Early online antiviruses were exclusively reactive.

They could only detect infections after they took place. Moreover, the first antivirus programs identified viruses by the relatively primitive technique of looking for their signature characteristics. However, if the attacker changed the file name, the computer antivirus might not be as effective. While early antivirus software could also recognize specific digital fingerprints or patterns, such as code sequences in network traffic or known harmful instruction sequences, they were always playing catch up.

Early antiviruses using signature-based strategies could easily detect known viruses, but they were unable to detect new attacks.

Instead, a new virus had to be isolated and analyzed to determine its signature, and subsequently added to the list of known viruses. Those using antiviruses online had to regularly download an ever-growing database file consisting of hundreds of thousands of signatures. Even so, new viruses that got out ahead of database updates left a significant percentage of devices unprotected.

The result was a constant race to keep up with the evolving landscape of threats as new viruses were created and released into the wild. PC viruses today are more of a legacy threat than an ongoing risk to computer users. They've been around for decades and have not substantially changed.

So, if computer viruses aren't really a thing anymore, why do people still call their threat protection software an antivirus program, and why do you need an antivirus for computers in the first place? It boils down to entrenched name recognition. Viruses made sensational headlines in the 90s, and security companies began using antivirus as shorthand for cyberthreats in general. Thus, the term antivirus was born.

Decades later, many security firms still use this term for marketing their products. It's become a vicious cycle. Consumers assume viruses are synonymous with cyberthreats, so companies call their cybersecurity products antivirus software, which leads consumers to think viruses are still the problem. But here's the thing. While virus and antivirus are not exactly anachronisms, modern cyberthreats are often much worse than their viral predecessors.

They hide deeper in our computer systems and are more adept at evading detection. The quaint viruses of yesterday have given rise to an entire rogue's gallery of advanced threats like spyware, rootkits, Trojans, exploits, and ransomware, to name a few. As these new attack categories emerged and evolved beyond early viruses, companies making antivirus for computers continued their mission against these new threats.

However, these companies were unsure of how to categorize themselves. Should they continue to market their products as antivirus software at the risk of sounding reductive? Should they use another "anti-threat" term for marketing themselves like "anti-spyware," for example?

Or was it better to take an all-inclusive approach and combine everything in a single product line that addressed all threats? The answers to these questions depend on the company. At Malwarebytes, cybersecurity is our highest-level catchall category. It makes sense to combine our anti-threat effort into a single term that covers more than just viruses. Viruses are just one kind of malware. There are other forms of malware that are more common these days.

Here are just a few:. Adware is unwanted software designed to throw advertisements up on your screen, often within a web browser, but sometimes within mobile apps as well. Typically, adware disguises itself as legitimate or piggybacks on another program to trick you into installing it on your PC, tablet, or mobile device.

Spyware is malware that secretly observes the computer user's activities, including browsing activity, downloads, payment information, and login credentials, and then reports this information to the software's author. Spyware isn't just for cybercriminals. Legitimate companies sometimes use spyware to track employees. A keylogger , spyware's less sophisticated cousin, is malware that records all the user's keystrokes on the keyboard.

This malware typically stores the gathered information and sends it to the attacker seeking sensitive information like usernames, passwords, or credit card details. A computer virus is malware that attaches to another program and, when triggered, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and infecting them with its own bits of code.

Worms are a type of malware similar to viruses in that they spread, but they don't require user interaction to be triggered. A Trojan , or Trojan Horse, is more of a delivery method for infections than an infection. The Trojan presents itself as something useful to trick users into opening it.

Trojan attacks can carry just about any form of malware, including viruses, spyware, and ransomware. Famously, the Emotet banking Trojan started as an information stealer, targeting banks and large corporations. Later, Emotet operated purely as an infection vector for other forms of malware, usually ransomware. Ransomware has been called the cybercriminal's weapon of choice, because it demands a profitable quick payment in hard-to-trace cryptocurrency.

A rootkit is malware that provides the attacker with administrator privileges on the infected system and actively hides from the normal computer user. Rootkits also hide from other software on the system—even from the operating system itself. Malicious cryptomining , also sometimes called drive-by mining or cryptojacking , is an increasingly prevalent form of malware or browser-based attack that is delivered through multiple attack methods, including malspam, drive-by downloads, and rogue apps and extensions.

So instead of letting you cash in on your computer's horsepower, the cryptominers send the collected coins into their own account—not yours. So, essentially, a malicious cryptominer is stealing your device's resources to make money. Exploits are a type of threat that takes advantage of bugs and vulnerabilities in a system in order to allow the exploit's creator to deliver malware. One of the most common exploits is the SQL injection.

Malvertising is an attack that uses malicious ads on mostly legitimate websites to deliver malware. You needn't even click on the ad to be affected—the accompanying malware can install itself simply by loading and viewing the page in your browser. All you have to do is visit a good site on the wrong day. Spoofing occurs when a threat pretends to be something it's not in order to deceive victims to take some sort of action like opening an infected email attachment or entering their username and password on a malicious site spoofed or faked to look like a legitimate site.

Phishing is a type of attack aimed at getting your login credentials, credit card numbers, and any other information the attackers find valuable. Phishing attacks often involve some form of spoofing, usually an email designed to look like it's coming from an individual or organization you trust. Many data breaches start with a phishing attack. The old school method of signature-based threat detection is effective to a degree, but modern anti-malware also detects threats using newer methods that look for malicious behavior.

To put it another way, signature-based detection is a bit like looking for a criminal's fingerprints. It's a great way to identify a threat, but only if you know what their fingerprints look like.

Modern anti-malware takes detection a step further so it can identify threats it has never seen before. By analyzing a program's structure and behavior, it can detect suspicious activity. Keeping with the analogy, it's a bit like noticing that one person always hangs out in the same places as known criminals and has a lock pick in his pocket. This newer, more effective cybersecurity technology is called heuristic analysis.

Each time a heuristic anti-malware program scans an executable file , it scrutinizes the program's overall structure, programming logic, and data. All the while, it looks for things like unusual instructions or junk code. In this way, it assesses the likelihood that the program contains malware. What's more, a big plus for heuristics is its ability to detect malware in files and boot records before the malware has a chance to run and infect your computer.

In other words, heuristics-enabled anti-malware is proactive, not reactive. Some anti-malware products can also run the suspected malware in a sandbox, which is a controlled environment in which the security software can determine whether a program is safe to deploy or not. Running malware in a sandbox lets the anti-malware look at what the software does, the actions it performs, and whether it tries to hide itself or compromise your computer.

Another way heuristic analytics helps keep users safe is by analyzing web page characteristics in order to identify risky sites that might contain exploits. If it recognizes something fishy, it blocks the site.

In brief, signature-based anti-malware is like a bouncer at the nightclub door, carrying a thick book of mug shots and booting anyone that matches.

Heuristic analysis is the bouncer who looks for suspicious behavior, pats people down, and sends home the ones carrying a weapon. These scanners are promoted by pop-ups and banner advertisement on malicious sites. You'll see an ad or a pop-up that offers a free computer scan, or claims to find something on your computer that warrants a scan. If you follow along and allow this "scan", your computer is infected by Mega Antivirus It is possible that there is a Trojan intermediary in the process, so you will be unware of the Trojan's download during the fake scan, instead of downloading Mega Antivirus In that case, the Trojan would take care of downloading or installing Mega Antivirus So, the facts about Mega Antivirus just don't seem to add up.

Mega Antivirus is not a clone of any existing malware, which is downright strange, since most fake security programs occur in huge groups. Also, Mega Antivirus has an appearance and design that falls far below the standard of most other rogue anti-virus software. After all, if the idea is that the fake software is supposed to be convincing, it needs to look as good as the real thing — but Mega Antivirus doesn't.

Of course, with a little prodding, Mega Antivirus openly admits that Mega Antivirus is a rogue program! Something strange is going on, if so little effort went into making Mega Antivirus convincing, and it tries to destroy your computer if you figure out that Mega Antivirus is fake. So what is going on with Mega Antivirus ? Although it is possible that Mega Antivirus is just another rogue anti-virus program and a run-of-the-mill scam, it was created by inexperienced or untalented con-artists, and the facts about mega Antivirus point to an additional possibility.

Could it be that Mega Antivirus is a classic virus? In other words, could Mega Antivirus be a prank intended to wreak havoc and cause damage, rather than something that is meant to be really convincing? It almost seems as if Mega Antivirus was created as a way of messing with people who tried to reverse engineer malware.

Malicous hackers might have created Mega Antivirus for a laugh. In the end, regardless of the reason for Mega Antivirus 's existence, Mega Antivirus represents a serious threat that must be dealt with quickly and with a heightened level of caution. In order to remove Mega Antivirus , it is best to follow the advice of experts carefully and avoid making things any worse.

Name required. Email will not be published required. HTML is not allowed. Submit Comment. The EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard is an assessment report that is given to every malware threat that has been collected and analyzed through our Malware Research Center. The EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard evaluates and ranks each threat by using several metrics such as trends, incidents and severity over time. In addition to the effective scoring for each threat, we are able to interpret anonymous geographic data to list the top three countries infected with a particular threat.

The data used for the EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard is updated daily and displayed based on trends for a day period. The EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard is a useful tool for a wide array of computer users from end users seeking a solution to remove a particular threat or security experts pursuing analysis and research data on emerging threats.

Each of the fields listed on the EnigmaSoft Threat Scorecard, containing a specific value, are as follows:. Ranking: The current ranking of a particular threat among all the other threats found on our malware research database. Threat Level: The level of threat a particular computer threat could have on an infected computer. The threat level is based on a particular threat's behavior and other risk factors.

We rate the threat level as low, medium or high. Infected Computer: The number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular threat detected on infected computers retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter's Spyware Scanner.

Mega Antivirus File System Details Mega Antivirus creates the following file s :. Expand All Collapse All. Name: ma This article should NOT be mistaken or confused in being associated in any way with the promotion or endorsement of malware. This article is provided "as is" and to be used for educational information purposes only. By following any instructions on this article, you agree to be bound by the disclaimer.