In this day and age, any and every computer with internet access must have a resident shield, without exception! Yet, when it comes to active defense, most people don’t even have the slightest concept of how it works or what it does, and consequently, how it can be sabotaged (even by their own mistakes). This article will describe the basics of real time protection that every responsible internet user should know to protect their computer and personal information.
Resident shield or real time protection is the single most important security service for computer and internet security. Other common synonyms for this service include background guard, on-access scanning, active defense, realtime shields, or autoprotect. Regardless of the name, the concept is the same, to continually protect you by monitoring active processes on your computer for suspicious activity. In short, your computer’s real time protection or resident shield is the preemptive defense against all threats from the internet. This service is intended to catch threats before any damage can be done.
Internet and computer security are, for the most part, a reactive industry. New viruses, worms, spyware, adware, malware programs, and a host of other threats are constantly being developed. For this reason, it is important to have a powerful resident shield service is that can detect threats based on heuristics (general behavior) and not just specific threat signature. A heuristic based real time protection service can stop new threats even if they have never been seen before. To put it simply, when choosing your resident shield, go with a trusted company with a proven track record.
There are two basic commonly overlooked facts about active protection programs. First, real time protection should always be active. That is why it’s commonly called a resident shield so there should never be any reason to disable it (most antivirus programs do not even offer this option). If you ever find your real time protection has been deactivated, this should immediately set off red flags that your security may be compromised. In such a case, you will immediately want to scan your computer for threats, with multiple security scanners.
The second point to remember is to only have one real time protection service running. Put simply, do not run more than one active antivirus realtime shield program because they will often conflict, possibly negating both. Choose one and only one reputable antivirus resident shield program and stick with it.
This concludes the basics for real time protection. There are many other layers of computer security that internet users should be using but the resident shield is the most important component and makes up the backbone of your defense.