Code Analysis
In code analysis, the machine code of the file is analysed to see if there is anything that looks suspicious. Typically, malware has characteristic behaviour and code analysis attempts to detect if this is present in the code.
Although useful, code analysis has significant limitations. It is not always easy to determine what a section of code is intended to do; particularly if it is very complex and has been deliberately written with the intention of defeating analysis. Another limitation of code analysis is the time and resources available. In the competitive world of antivirus software, there is always a balance between the effectiveness of analysis and the time delay involved.
Read more about this topic: Zero-day Virus
Famous quotes containing the words code and/or analysis:
“Motion or change, and identity or rest, are the first and second secrets of nature: Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)