About IM Anti-Virus

IM Anti-Virus scans the traffic of instant messaging clients (known as IM clients).

IM Anti-Virus does not scan messages transmitted over encrypted channels.

Messages that are sent through IM clients can contain the following kinds of security threats:

• URLs that attempt to download a malicious program to the computer
• URLs to malicious programs and websites that intruders use for phishing attacks

  The goal of phishing attacks is to steal the personal data of users, such as bank card numbers, passport details, passwords for bank payment systems and other online services (such as social networking sites or email accounts).

Files can be transmitted through IM clients. On attempts to save such files, the files are scanned by the File Anti-Virus component.

IM Anti-Virus intercepts every message that the user sends or receives through an IM client and scans it for links that may threaten the security of the computer:

• If no dangerous URLs are detected in the message, it becomes available to the user.
• If dangerous links are detected in the message, IM Anti-Virus replaces the message with information about the threat in the message window of the active IM client.