What is Next-Gen Antivirus?

Next-generation antivirus (NGAV) software uses a combination of new technology, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, to effectively identify and eliminate threats to your business.

In order to achieve this, NGAV software takes an algorithmic approach to device protection that examines processes, data, application usage, network activity, and user behavior to help spot unusual activity.

The main difference here is that next-gen antivirus software is proactive, whereas legacy antivirus systems are very reactive. You can greatly enhance your organization’s cybersecurity posture today by embracing the defensive power of NGAV.

How effective is your current approach to cybersecurity? Use our checklist, How Covered is Your Business, to help identify the weak points in your security strategy and what technologies, tools, and policies you need to stay secure. Access the checklist here.

Understanding Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV)

Next-generation antivirus is the next evolution in antivirus software that aims to protect businesses from cybercriminals. It uses a combination of modern technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to improve threat detection efficiency, incident response time, and length of recovery.

NGAV is a more proactive approach to cybersecurity that can identify network usage trends and learn from past breaches, attacks, and vulnerabilities to improve security protocols moving forward.

NGAV also makes use of investigative tools that allow the software to analyze the structure, behavior, and programming logic of threatening programs before they’re executed on your systems.

Why Next-Gen Antivirus Is Crucial for Businesses

Over the past few years, there has been a steady rise in both the number and severity of cyberattacks. Cyberattacks range from ransomware attacks that encrypt your most valuable files and sensitive information to phishing attacks designed to access and steal personal employee information like social security numbers, financial account credentials, or private work logins.

The surge in cyberthreats has made next-generation antivirus a necessity. Not only have cyberattacks become much more frequent, but the complexity of the attacks has also become more sophisticated.

Some of the most popular cyberattacks include: phishing, ransomware, malware, spyware, zero-day—and there are always more under development.

Staying ahead of cybercriminals is a tremendous challenge for businesses of all sizes but especially difficult for companies without strong cybersecurity strategies, policies, and practices in place.

With cybercrime on the rise, one thing is for sure: the traditional "set it and forget it" approach that legacy antivirus software takes simply is not enough anymore.

Next-Gen Antivirus vs. Traditional or Legacy Solutions

Modern cybercriminals are smart. They are so smart that they’ve invented new attacks specifically designed to defeat older systems with known flaws that, if old enough, are no longer being actively patched and fixed. These new threats know exactly what vulnerabilities to target, can quickly identify system weaknesses, and proceed to easily infiltrate a business’ network.

Additionally, business systems are becoming much more complex than legacy antivirus software was originally designed to defend. Now we have remote workers (logging in from multiple devices on different networks), cloud-based data, more connected devices, the Internet of Things, and a slew of other tech-based solutions that organizations employ.

Traditional antivirus takes a signature-based approach, meaning it scans files for identifiers that match known viruses. However, modern-day attackers know how to disguise malicious code to bypass these defenses. Using new techniques, cybercriminals can introduce malware without adding new files onto a system or through code that periodically changes to remain undetected by signature-based detection methods.

NGAV software focuses on using network events to identify malicious intent, behavior, and activity when compared to the typical network activity on any given day.

Benefits of Next-Generation Antivirus

The biggest difference between traditional antivirus and NGAV is that the latter takes a proactive approach to protection opposed to a reactive one.

The number of endpoints existing on business networks is consistently growing and is now much higher than it was just years ago. Simply put, a traditional antivirus can’t keep up.

A next-gen antivirus solution looks for file signatures, similarly to a traditional antivirus, but it also detects attacks by scanning for events, processes, and connections to seek out inconsistencies and irregularities within your network.

This makes it significantly harder for modern attacks to successfully get into your network.

NGAV software is a modern tool for modern cyberthreats. It takes system security above and beyond anything a legacy antivirus software could offer. One of the biggest benefits of investing in NGAV security is that it’s capable of detecting both known and unknown threats.

Through its use of sophisticated technologies, like machine learning and AI, NGAV programs can successfully identify new malware even if it uses a disguising protocol to hide its identifiable features in the programming.

Significantly improved efficiency is another major benefit that NGAV programs bring to your organization. This efficiency stems from a few sources, including more readable reports, cloud-based services that allow for super quick downloads, automatic updates, and seamless system integration.

High-quality next-generation antivirus programs also minimize downtime and dwell time in the event of a successful cyberattack.

Here are a few more ways that a modern NGAV program takes cybersecurity to the next level:

• Machine Learning: An automated process in which a bot scans files for malware.
• Behavior Analysis: Processes are monitored in order to detect abnormalities that could be the result of cyberattacks.
• Threat Intelligence: When a threat is detected, every device on the network is updated to help counter additional danger and to stop the spread.

Do You Need Next-Gen Antivirus?

The short answer is yes.

Cybercriminals are no longer lone hackers typing away in dark basements—they’re leveraging artificial intelligence to supercharge their attacks, making them faster, smarter, and harder to detect. Traditional antivirus solutions, built on signature-based detection, simply can’t keep up with AI-driven threats that mutate in real-time, evade legacy defenses, and strike with surgical precision.

Next-generation antivirus is designed to combat this evolving threat landscape, using AI and behavioral analysis to identify malicious activity before it causes damage. Instead of relying on known malware signatures, NGAV proactively detects anomalies, stops zero-day threats, and adapts to new attack techniques.

Organizations that fail to upgrade to NGAV risk becoming easy prey for AI-powered cyberattacks, including advanced ransomware, polymorphic malware, and social engineering campaigns that evolve faster than traditional defenses can respond. NGAV doesn’t just detect threats—it provides continuous monitoring, real-time response, and automated threat mitigation, minimizing the impact of a breach.

As cybercriminals weaponize AI to exploit vulnerabilities at scale, businesses must embrace equally intelligent defenses. Investing in NGAV isn’t just about security—it’s about survival in an era where cyberthreats are faster, more sophisticated, and increasingly relentless.

Choosing Your NGAV Solution

Now that we’ve reviewed how next-generation antivirus works, the benefits it brings to the business, and why it’s better suited for modern cybersecurity strategies than legacy antivirus software is, let’s review a few of the key functions and capabilities you want to look for when selecting an NGAV solution.

One of the most important considerations to take into account when looking for a next-generation antivirus is how effectively it adapts to evolving cyberattack tactics and techniques. A high-quality NGAV protects your network from cyberattacks that leverage commodity malware, zero-day exploits, or even sophisticated malware-free attacks.

There are four pillars of next-gen antivirus that your solution needs to cover:

1. Malware Defense

NGAV employs sophisticated methods to identify and mitigate potential threats across your network. Unlike conventional antivirus solutions, NGAV uses machine learning and behavior analysis to identify threats, rather than predefined signatures.

This proactive approach enables next-generation antivirus to adapt and evolve, continuously learning from past encounters to anticipate and neutralize both new and emerging threats. By carefully monitoring network activity, NGAV discerns any unusual or suspicious behaviors that indicate malicious intent.

All-in-all, machine learning and behavior analytics in next-generation antivirus software strengthen system defenses by seeking out, identifying, and blocking existing and new-aged malware.

2. Preventing Malware-Free Cyberattacks

While malware defense is a major component of NGAV, not all cyberattacks make use of traditional malware attacks. This is why it’s important that the next-generation antivirus you choose actively looks for attack indicators that hint at malicious activity.

Powered by machine learning and powerful online algorithms that deliver real-time analysis of potential threats helps you get in front of newly developed cyberattacks that don’t yet carry an identifying signature or use a malware-delivery system.

3. Threat Intelligence and Analysis

Threat intelligence and analysis is the brain behind NGAV and enables these solutions with tools and tactics designed for an immediate response to network threats and cyberattacks.

Simply put, threat intelligence is how next-generation antivirus solutions determine the origin and severity of cyber threats, as well as how they can best be mitigated or neutralized.

The ability to identify threats and predict their impact allows your organization to create response priorities and maintain a healthy, uncompromised network.

4. Cloud Compatible

Next-generation antivirus solutions become even more powerful when they’re integrated with the cloud.

By integrating NGAV with the cloud, it gains access to a huge library of threat intelligence and data analytics it can learn from to address modern cyber threats. By leveraging the cloud, NGAV can access the latest information about emerging threats and adapt defenses accordingly.

Additionally, cloud-based networks facilitate seamless collaboration and information sharing among NGAV protocols and response instances, enhancing overall threat detection and response capabilities across any working environment.

Wrapping Up on Next-Generation Antivirus

Next-generation antivirus solutions enhance your cybersecurity by identifying a malicious network presence, combatting malware installations, and adapting to new-aged cyberattacks in real-time.

Keeping up with the latest cybersecurity threats can be difficult for businesses that don’t have large internal IT or cybersecurity teams. This is dangerous because cybercriminals are always adapting the way they attack networks, so without updated defenses in place and modern next-generation antivirus solutions, businesses are leaving themselves vulnerable to all sorts of new attacks.

To see how covered your business is from modern cyberattacks, check out our checklist, How Covered is Your Business which will help walk you through the required security elements businesses should have to stay secure.