What is heuristics in ESET NOD32?
In addition to comparing potential malware against known virus signatures, all ESET NOD32 products employ the use of heuristics in detecting viruses, trojans and other threats. Heuristics is a technique which implements a set of guidelines or rules in order to problem solve efficiently. In an antivirus context, heuristics are a set of rules used to detect malicious program behavior without needing to uniquely identify the specific threat, as is required by classic signature-based detection. The primary advantage of the heuristic-based model is not only its ability to detect variants or modified forms of existing malicious programs, but also new previously-unknown malicious programs. ESET NOD32 Antivirus and ESET Smart Security use heuristics to detect both known and unknown threats and malware. Two forms of heuristics are used, Passive and Active. Passive Heuristics: Passive Heuristics analyze a potential threat as it is scanned, tracing through the instructions in the program before p
