If I Have Samsung Knox Do I Need Antivirus? [Answered]

Perhaps you have Samsung Knox on your device and are asking yourself a question like “if I have Samsung Knox, do I need antivirus”. Well, Knox is a decent built-in security feature on Samsung that provides strong protection. That said, it isn’t really an antivirus but multilayered tech built on the device by the manufacturer. It has overlapping layers and other security features but does not guarantee protection against viruses and malware. This article will tell you more about Samsung Knox and why you will need antivirus even if you have Samsung Knox.

1How Can Samsung Knox Protect Device Security?

Before digging into whether Samsung Knox antivirus alone can protect your device against antivirus, it is important to first understand what Samsung Knox is and how it protects your device. So, let’s dive in and give you bit overview about Samsung Knox:

What is Samsung Knox?

As we’ve mentioned, Samsung Knox is essentially a multilayered hardware and software security technology developed by Samsung to offer mobile security for both business and individual devices.

Its security begins from the chip level and consists of sub-layers that combine to provide solid security whenever your device is turned on.

These layers and other security features protect your app and data by strictly controlling the processes and data that can be accessed. This makes it useful in protecting devices from threats like theft, hacking, and unauthorized access among others.

How Samsung Knox ensures data security on your device?

Samsung Knox prevents unauthorized access to data using features such as passcodes and biometrics to control device access, TrustZone architecture to isolate sensitive data, and boot-time protection to verify the integrity of the device.
These features among others prevent unauthorized access from different scenarios:

● Data encryption: Samsung Knox encrypts all types of data to prevent interception by attackers. It uses a sensitive data protection scheme to encrypt data at rest, Knox DualDAR to encrypt the data saved in the encryption space, and a secure folder to encrypt data from cyber-attacks.

● Network Encryption: Just like data encryption, Samsung Knox helps encrypt a network. It encrypts the network traffic and blocks certain tracking apps to ensure a safe connection to the network.

● Application Control: Samsung Knox strictly selects the processes the apps can run and what data they can access. This ensures privacy in both your apps and personal files.

2How Can Antivirus Protect Device Security?

An antivirus is essentially a dedicated tool that detects and removes a virus from a device or network. It works by scanning files and codes to detect patterns that indicate malicious programs.

Often, Antivirus companies create a frequently updated database of viruses and other malicious programs. The tools can thus use algorithms to compare and confirm whether the suspected program is a virus or not.

How an antivirus protects your device?

● Detection- An antivirus scans incoming files and codes to detect viruses/malware/vulnerabilities in those files. This ensures that any malware is detected before attacking your device.

● Protection/Prevention- An antivirus uses built-in intelligence to detect and protect/ prevent phishing attacks from emails and infected websites on your device. It can detect spammy messages/links that can trick the user into unknowingly infecting the device with malware.

● Removal- Once an antivirus detects spam or malware, it deletes those files from the device to prevent them from causing damage.

● Alerts- When an antivirus detects that your device has been attacked, it immediately sends an alert/warning on the screen. This will help you take precautions on infected files, messages, links, or websites.

3Main Difference Between Antivirus and Samsung Knox

Now that you understand the capabilities of Samsung Knox and Antivirus, knowing the main differences will help you answer the question “is Samsung Knox an antivirus”. Let’s look at the differences between the two:

4Best Antivirus Tools to Secure Devices

Frankly, there are many antiviruses on the market and finding the right antivirus for your needs can be challenging. Here are some of the best antivirus tools you can use to secure your Samsung device:

Before introducing the tools, let's see the comparison table of them:

Features	Avast	AVG Antivirus	Norton360	McAfee	Avira
Smart Scan	(Free)	(Free)	(Free)	(Paid)	(Free)
VPN	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Free)
Call and SMS Blocking	(Paid)
Web Protection	(Free)	(Free)	(Free)	(Paid)	(Free)
Malware Detection and Removal	(Free)	(Free)	(Free)	(Paid)	(Free)
Alerts	(Free)	(Free)	(Free)	(Paid)	(Free)
Password Manager			(Free)	(Paid)	(Free but limited)
App Permission Manage				(Paid)
Advanced Firewall	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Paid)	(Paid)
Identity Theft Assistance	(Paid)		(Paid)	(Paid)

1Avast

Avast is one of the best antivirus tools you can use for your Samsung device. It stands out primarily for its ability to efficiently detect and remove suspicious malware and intrusive ads. It thus provides strong web protection, breach alerts, a firewall, and advanced anti-tracking protection.

Avast offers both free and premium versions although the former has limited capabilities. The premium plan offers extra features like VPN, remote access shield, dark web monitoring, identity theft insurance, and system optimization tools among others.

2AVG AntiVirus

AVG Antivirus is another nice Antivirus you can go for if you’re looking to keep your Samsung device free of viruses and junk that accumulates over time. If you are on a budget then you can simply go for the free version, albeit it has limitations, such as ads.

This antivirus provides real-time protection and manual scanning functions. It helps users protect their devices and data through its four distinct features namely computer, web and email, personal data, and hacker attacks.

However, it is worth noting that the freemium version lacks hacker attacks and personal data features.

3Norton360

Norton360 is one of the best antivirus tools that’s particularly excellent against malware, plus it offers a variety of features including VPN, identity protection through LifeLock, and comprehensive device monitoring.

This antivirus can help you protect your device and personal information from scams, malware, ransomware, viruses, and hackers. It simply blocks thousands of threats every minute, allowing you to keep your online activity private.

Norton360 also uses password manager and dark web monitoring features to reduce the risk of exploitation of personal information to compromise accounts.

4McAfee

McAfee is another nice antivirus tool you can go for if you’re looking for a tool with robust security and effective malware protection.

This antivirus provides advanced privacy protection such as VPN to keep your personal information private on public Wi-Fi. Additionally, it comes with personal data cleanup to take back your personal data from sites that sell them and identity and financial protection for theft coverage and recovery.

McAfee also has an AI-powered antivirus and text scam detector that gives you real-time protection against viruses, hackers, and other vulnerabilities.

5Avira

Avira is another excellent choice if you’re looking for an antivirus tool that has an established reputation for reliability in terms of real-time scans for malware and app security issues. In fact, the app isn’t just efficient when it comes to scans, it has quite an intuitive design plus it is easy to use.

This antivirus can thus protect your Samsung device from several types of attacks including ransomware, worms, viruses, and Trojans.

It also includes several features such as an ad blocker, antivirus scanner, NightVision to protect against new and evolving threats, safe browsing, and PUA Shield to identify potentially harmful applications hidden within legitimate software.