Cloud Computing Standards and Security - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 344

Antivirus Software
Antivirus and anti-malware are types of computer software designed to prevent, scan,
detect, and remove viruses, worms, Trojans, adware, and other types of malware.
www.webroot.com/us/en/home/resources/tips/pc-security/security-what-is-
anti-virus-software
Given that new malware is created daily, antivirus software is an essential tool to have.
Computer security companies such as Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, Panda, and others
build and offer a variety of tools with functions such these:
■ Scan for viruses and malware
■ Schedule scans to run automatically
■ Detect and remove malicious software
■ Meter the health of the host machine
However, antivirus tools can have some drawbacks:
■ Computer performance is affected.
■ Antivirus programs are not usually up-to-date all the time and are not a 100 percent
guarantee against all new viruses and malware.
■ Antivirus programs run with special permissions to gain access to all processes and
files, which may become a potential threat on its own.
■ Some sophisticated viruses particularly attack antivirus programs.
Despite these drawbacks, antivirus programs are a good option to have on hosts for
security and protection. Security companies nowadays focus on creating lightweight tools
that can be readily and regularly updated without requiring reboots. This enables maxi-
mum protection against evolving threats.
Software Security Patching
A patch is a piece of software that is designed to update, fix, or improve a computer program
or its supporting data ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_%28computing%29 ). Patches
can also be used to deliberately break functionality in a program by removing certain compo-
nents for which the provider is no longer licensed or paid. It can also be used to dynamically
disable a device.
Patching is widely used for fixing emerging and newly found security issues. Generally,
a security patch is applied to a software application to fix weaknesses caused by a vulner-
ability. Large software engineering enterprises such as Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Red Hat,
and Oracle have security teams that are dedicated to releasing security patches to fix
vulnerabilities.
One of the important techniques used in dynamic server environments is hot patching ,
also known as hot fixing or live patching . The idea is to apply patches to software applica-
tions without system reboot. This technique addresses the unavailability and downtime
issues of a software application or a service.