Should You Add Computer Anti-Virus Software to Your Christmas List This Year?

Holiday shopping might be intimidating to some. What do you get for a mom that has everything or a minimalist brother who wants nothing? Your holiday gifts should be thoughtful. If you want to show your friends and family how much you care about them, give them a present that ensures their safety—like antivirus software or endpoint security to protect their devices.

Cyberattacks cause computers to malfunction, reveal passwords, compromise bank accounts, and more. Protection software guarantees you will be safe from attacks such as these.

What is Endpoint Security?

If you are wondering, what does endpoint security mean, you’re at the right place. Endpoint security is the protection of information to and from the endpoints for a computer system, such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. Those devices use an internet connection to connect with websites, email accounts, etc. The information that is transferred via an internet connection must be encrypted to conceal the information, such as passwords. 

Why Do You Need Endpoint Security?

When you use a password to access your email account while you are connected to a Wi-Fi signal at a coffee shop or hotel, there is a risk that your password could be visible to the other users on the Wi-Fi signal. You could also encounter other problems from several types of malware, such as from the attachments for email messages, which could infect your computer with a computer virus that would cause your computer to malfunction.

Computer security software will generate alert messages about security problems when are trying to connect with Wi-Fi signals, download software or documents, or trying to use credit cards for online purchases on websites. There should also be a feature for safe browsing to immediately control problems from unsafe websites that could be used to steal personal information. The antivirus software should detect, prevent, and stop attacks from malware.

How to Decide Which Brand to Go With

When deciding on antivirus software, you should consider some options for determining the cause of security problems and for monitoring, tracking, and identifying the attacker, such as a guest on your computer. For instance, your daughter might have tried to install or uninstall some software on your computer without your permission. There are some critical features for antivirus software:

• Option for automatic updates,
• Protection for several devices,
• Real-time scanning for security problems,
• Useful for all types of malware,
• Error messages to alert a computer user, and
• Feature for automatically cleaning the operating system on a computer.

The antivirus software should generate alert messages in pop-up windows to inform you about security problems on your computer. There should also be some options with a message on a pop-up window for :

• quickly leaving an unsafe website, 
• scanning for problems from software, 
• stopping online transactions, 
• and for starting the process for cleaning the operating system on your computer if a threat had been detected by the software.