Armored Virus

What Does Armored Virus Mean?

An armored virus is a computer virus that contains a variety of mechanisms specifically coded to make its detection and decryption very difficult.

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One of these methods involves fooling anti-virus software into believing that the virus is resides somewhere other than its real location, which makes it difficult to detect and remove. Another kind of armor is implemented by adding complicated and confusing code, which has no other purpose other than to mask the virus and prevent virus researchers from creating an effective countermeasure.

Techopedia Explains Armored Virus

Anti-virus researchers find out how a virus works by examining and following the code of the virus. An armored virus makes this difficult by making it hard to disassemble the virus. This gives the virus more time to propagate itself before researchers can create a countermeasure.

Armored viruses are very complex and have significant code involved, which adds to their armor. Although quite effective, the flip-side is that all the armor creates a very large virus that can be detected more easily before it has a chance to infect anything.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…