Glossary

Active key

A key that is currently being used by the application.

Administration Server

A component of Kaspersky Security Center that centrally stores information about Kaspersky applications installed on the corporate network, and manages them.

Anti-virus databases

Databases that contain information about computer security threats known to Kaspersky as of when the anti-virus databases are released. Anti-virus database entries make it possible to detect malicious code in scanned objects. Anti-virus databases are created by Kaspersky experts and updated hourly.

Archive

One or more file(s) packaged into a single file through compression. A dedicated application, called an archiver, is required for packing and unpacking the data.

Backup

Special storage intended for saving backup copies of objects before they are disinfected or deleted.

Disinfection

A method of processing infected objects that results in full or partial recovery of data. Not all infected objects can be disinfected.

Event importance

Property of an event encountered during the operation of a Kaspersky application. There are four importance levels:

• Critical event.
• Functional failure.
• Warning.
• Info.

Events of the same type can have different importance levels depending on the situation in which the event occurred.

False positive

A situation where a Kaspersky application considers a non-infected object to be infected because the object's code is similar to that of a virus.

File mask

A representation of a file name using generic characters. The main characters used in file masks are * and ? (where * stands for any number of any characters, and ? stands for any single character).

Heuristic analyzer

A technology for detecting threats about which information has not yet been added to Kaspersky databases. The heuristic analyzer detects objects whose behavior in the operating system may pose a security threat. Objects detected by the heuristic analyzer are considered to be probably infected. For example, an object may be considered probably infected if it contains sequences of commands that are typical of malicious objects (open file, write to file).

Infectable file

A file that, due to its structure or format, can be used by criminals as a "container" to store and spread malicious code. As a rule, these are executable files with such file extensions as .com, .exe, .dll, and others. The risk that malicious code will intrude into such files is quite high.

Infected object

An object in which a section of code completely matches a section of code of a known threat. Kaspersky experts do not recommend that you work with such objects.

Kaspersky Security Network (KSN)

Cloud services infrastructure that provides access to Kaspersky's online knowledge base about the reputation of files, web resources, and software. Using data from Kaspersky Security Network ensures faster responses by Kaspersky applications to threats, improves the performance of some protection components, and reduces the likelihood of false positives.

License term

The period of time during which you can use the application functions and additional services. The scope of available features and additional services depends on the license type.

Local task

A task that is defined and runs on an individual client computer.

OLE object

An object attached to another file or embedded into another file through the use of the Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. An example of an OLE object is a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet embedded into a Microsoft Office Word document.

Policy

A policy defines application settings and manages the ability to configure that application on computers within an administration group. An individual policy must be created for each application. You can create multiple policies for applications installed on computers in each administration group, but only one policy can be applied at a time to each application within an administration group.

Protection state

The current protection status, which characterizes the security level of the device.

Quarantine

The folder to which the Kaspersky application moves probably infected objects that have been detected. Objects are stored in Quarantine in encrypted form in order to avoid any impact on the computer.

Security level

A security level is a predefined set of component settings.

SIEM

An abbreviation of Security Information and Event Management. A solution for managing information and events in the security system of an organization.

Startup objects

A set of applications needed for the operating system and software that is installed on the computer to start and operate correctly. These objects are executed every time the operating system is started. There are viruses capable of infecting such objects specifically, which may lead, for example, to blocking of operating system startup.

Task

Functions performed by the Kaspersky application are implemented as tasks, such as: Real-Time File Protection, Full Computer Scan, and Database Update.

Task settings

Application settings specific to each type of task.

Update

The process of replacing or adding new files (databases or application modules) retrieved from Kaspersky update servers.

Vulnerability

A flaw in an operating system or an application that may be exploited by malware makers to penetrate the operating system or application, and corrupt its integrity. The presence of a large number of vulnerabilities in an operating system makes it unreliable, because viruses that penetrate the operating system may disrupt both the operating system and installed applications.