Introduction

Malware such as viruses are common cyber-attacks that malicious individuals use to disrupt the normal operations of a computer system. Malware can steal information, encrypt data and request for ransom, harvest passwords, slow down the operation of a computing facility or cause other undesirable effects (Chamorro et al., p.98). An anti-virus is a program that is created to identify malware, prevent it from spreading and remove it from a computing an environment. It was originally designed to only detect, protect and remove the virus type of With the discovery of other malware types such as key loggers, ransomware and worms, the scope of antivirus was increased to detect and respond to the other malware types. There are basically two types of anti-virus programs classified by their mode of operations. Signature-based anti-virus will identify malware if only a signature is included in its database showing exactly how the malware in question works (Mohurle et al., 67). On the other hand anomaly, based anti-viruses will detect and respond to any program that performs abnormal activities.