Will my antivirus program protect me from Malware?

While antivirus programs generally have a very good “hit rate” (the number of viruses and trojans in the wild that they can find) the rate of success for malware scanners is much much lower;  the dispute over what is considered to be true “malware” continues to make this a difficult industry to police, also the malware companies constantly evolve and update their nefarious products as something that is new, hard to detect or as yet unknown yields very quick results – and subsequently quick cash.  As soon as it’s widely discovered and known about – its detection and removal rate falls sharply.

Some malware actively fights back – it tries to stop itself from being removed and also tries to ensure it (or one of its later incarnations) is re-installed at a later time.  In truth it’s very hard for most systems to be well protected against this threat;  technical know-how, caution and a lot of vigilance are your most powerful tools.