Concepts

The word “antivirus” refers to a group of features that are designed to prevent unwanted and potentially malicious files from entering your network. These features all work in different ways, which include checking for a file size, name, or type, or for the presence of a virus or grayware signature.

The antivirus scanning routines your FortiGate unit uses are designed to share access to the network traffic. This way, each individual feature does not have to examine the network traffic as a separate operation, and the overhead is reduced significantly. For example, if you enable file filtering and virus scanning, the resources used to complete these tasks are only slightly greater than enabling virus scanning alone. Two features do not require twice the resources.

Antivirus scanning examines files for viruses, worms, trojans, and other malware. The antivirus scan engine has a database of virus signatures it uses to identify infections. If the scanner finds a signature in a file, it determines that the file is infected and takes the appropriate action.