DAT

DAT holds specific details concerning viruses and other infectious threats, allowing the anti-virus program to successfully detect and identify a malicious source. Unfortunately, not all malicious content can be identified by these rules. This has led to well known anti-virus vendors, such as McAfee, to revolutionize components that are not only able to detect malicious software, but identify it before the virus has been completely scripted. This is quite similar to how a filtering program is able to identify spam and prevent it from reaching a user’s primary inbox. Since virus writers are forever creating new threats, it is important for a user to keep these updated and remain current. Instead of placing so many burdens on a user, many anti-virus programs have changed the schedule from an emergency and weekly basis to releasing them every day. The reports contain information about the most recent threats, how serious they are and how they can be handled.