User Guide

7
User’s Guide 249
7Updating and Upgrading Dr
Solomon’sAnti-Virus
Developing an updating strategy
Makenomistakeaboutit:viruswritersareelectronicvandalswhocan destroy
your data, cause system instability, and cost you time and money. The
overwhelmingmajorityofthemarerelativelyineptprogrammerswhorelyon
virus “kits,” or other pre-madetools, to introduce small variations in existing
viruses or other malicious software. But some virus writers do introduce new
twists or unexpected attack strategies into their creations. To counter these
threats, Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (AVERT) researchers must
release frequent updates to the virus definitions database and technical
enhancements or upgrades to the scan engine that Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus
uses. Without updated files, Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus might not recognize
new forms of malicious software or detect new virus strains when it
encounters them.
What are .DAT files?
Virus definition, or .DAT, files contain up-to-date virus signatures and other
information that Dr Solomon’s anti-virus products use to protect your
computer against the thousands of computer viruses in circulation. Dr
Solomon’s Software releases new .DAT files weekly to provide protection
against the approximately 500 new viruses that appear each month.
With this Dr Solomon’s Anti-Virus release, Dr Solomon’s Software has
introduced a new incremental .DAT, or iDAT, technology that consists of
small file collections that contain only the virus definitions that have changed
between weekly .DAT file releases—not theentire.DATfileset.This
development means that you can download .DAT file updates much faster,
andata farlowercostinbandwidth,thaneverbefore.Tolearnmoreaboutthe
new technology, see Appendix D, “Understanding iDAT Technology.”
What is the scan engine?
The Dr Solomon’s scan engine is at the heart of Dr Solomon’s anti-virus
software. The engine contains the program logic necessary to scan files at
particular points, process and pattern-match virus definitions with data it
finds in your files, decrypt and run virus code in an emulated environment,
apply heuristic techniques to recognize new viruses, and remove infectious