How do antiviruses perform their scans so quickly?

ITKE

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Antivirus software

How do antivirus programs investigate hundreds of thousands of files so quickly while maintaining good detection rates? Most are able to do this in real-time while not slowing down computer processing rates by very much. How is this done?

Asked: November 25, 2013 3:12 PM Last updated: November 26, 2013 4:21 PM

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TomLiotta Nov 26, 2013 7:32 AM GMT

Scanning in "real-time" generally involves only a very few files, perhaps only one at a time, e.g., the single one that is currently being accessed in any kind of update mode. Full scans are not done in "real-time" and can take a significant length of time to complete. -- Tom

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ToddN2000 Nov 26, 2013 4:21 PM GMT

Most only deal with the active file being accessed like Tom mentioned. The may also monitor for registry changes. That's not a lot of overhead so performance does not take a hit. However, a full scan on a pc/laptop with about 200g of data/files may take hours with some AV programs like AdAware,,Spybot S&D, MWAV, AVG and the like.

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