What Is Zero Day Virus?

You know when you're just so happy with your life, and suddenly, your phone starts buzzing with notifications about a zero-day malware attack? Well, that's like being really happy and then getting hit by a truck. You don't know what is happening, and you do start panicking to understand what just quite happened there—except instead of ending up in the hospital, your phone buzzes and wakes you up from this nightmare of a thought. You try to get back your senses. That's because zero-day malware is a specific kind of malware or malicious software that has only recently been discovered. In general, a zero-day phenomenon is not previously known or anticipated. Security teams respond to zero-day malware and other zero-day events, tracking their ability to resolve them in real-time. There's much malware out there. It's always been a problem, but it seems like it's getting worse. That's not surprising. Technology is advancing faster than ever before, and hackers are using the new ways we connect to find new ways to break into our systems. So what does "Zero Day Virus" mean? It means the malware is brand new—it hasn't been seen before. As it's so unique, hackers haven't had time to develop ways of fighting it yet! It's like when you get a new attack dog: You don't know what its favorite treat is or how much water it likes to drink, or whether it'll grow up to be big enough to scare off burglars on its own yet—but you know that someday those things will come up, so you teach your dog how to do them right now. Zero-day malware is a helpful marker showing a new threat and needs to be documented and resolved as quickly as possible.