The Antimalware Agent is the scan engine that protects devices against malware threats. The agent uses a variety of technologies to detect malware, including:
Malware signature files: The Antimalware Agent uses traditional signatures to quickly detect known malware threats. By default, the agent checks for signature updates every hour.
Heuristic analysis: The Antimalware Agent uses complex heuristic algorithms and emulation to identify patterns and behaviors consistent with malicious files.
The agent provides real-time protection through on-access scans that occur whenever a file is opened, copied, moved, or executed. It can also perform on-demand scans (scheduled or user/administrator-initiated) of local, removable, and network drives, scan the device's boot sectors, memory, and registry, and can scan for keyloggers, rootkits, and Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUA).
You can control the level of interaction users have with the Antimalware Agent by completely hiding the agent or restricting the types of malware alerts that are displayed. For information about installation prerequisites and more details about the Antimalware Agent post installation, see Antimalware Agent Details.