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Recognizing malware by just looking at files is utterly insufficient. Today, though, we’re afflicted with polymorphic malware, pernicious ransomware, and other advanced attacks. Researchers even named some based on the number of bytes they’d add to an infected file.
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Those early viruses were predictable and easily detected using simple techniques. The earliest antivirus products specifically protected against computer viruses, programs that spread by injecting their code into other programs.
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