The best solutions and software to protect against malware

Worried about malware for your organization? As an IT professional, you can’t guarantee that your end-user networks will never experience malware attacks. But you can make sure you’re prepared in case that ever happens.

The best malware protection software covers you from multiple fronts, preparing your environment in advance of a breach, monitoring unusual activity, and limiting the impact of malware.

In this article, our team at Atera has reviewed the best solutions and software for protection against malware. Before we review the best tools, we’ll start with the basics, discuss what malware protection software is, its benefits, and share tips on how to protect against malware attacks.

What is malware protection software?

Malware protection software is designed to protect your organization’s devices and networks from malicious software, known as malware. Often intended to damage a program or device, malware can include spyware, adware, ransomware, nagware, trojans, worms, or viruses.

To protect against these threats, these tools rely on three main techniques:

1. Scanning: Using techniques like static detection and heuristic analysis, anti-malware software scans files, programs, and system behavior to identify known threats and detect suspicious activity.
2. Sandboxing: One of the best ways to protect against malware, sandboxes perform dynamic analysis by running the malware in a controlled environment and monitoring its performance. If the software attempts malicious actions, the sandbox detects it as malware.

Malware removal: If an incoming file is identified as malware, the software takes automated remediation steps to remove it from the system and prevent similar files from doing the same in the future.

Why do you need malware protection software?

Why should your organization use tools for malware protection? These tools offer a number of benefits, but the main four are:

1. They help to protect your entire organization

Attackers tend to spread a wide net, hoping to find a vulnerability in just a single endpoint or trick just one user into clicking in the wrong place.

From here, they establish a foothold and then move across a network by escalating credentials and access, or by finding connectivity between users. This is how one employee or workstation can become a single point of failure.

For this reason, it’s important that all endpoints within your organization are continuously monitored, with both malware protection and RMM software.

2. Malware attacks are extremely common

In 2024 alone, 59% of organizations were hit by a ransomware attack. And while this number is down from 2023 and 2022, the overall trend is that the number of malware attacks is increasing.

3. Anti-malware tools do automatic scans

Many features of anti-malware tools are pretty set and forget, one of which is their automatic scans. These tools automatically scan your systems at regular intervals (e.g., weekly or daily), with no manual input needed.

This means that new malware is identified quickly, and there is very little manual intervention needed from your IT team.

4. Compliance with data protection regulations

Industry-specific regulations vary, but few things are consistent across all fields: the need to protect sensitive data and demonstrate strong cybersecurity measures. Regulations, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), require organizations to have strong cybersecurity measures for protecting sensitive information.

With features like real-time protection and detailed reports, the best malware systems help to meet these regulatory requirements.

8 best malware protection software in 2025

We researched the best malware protection software, compared their features, and read the user reviews. Based on this, the best tools for malware protection are:

• Webroot – Best cloud-based malware protection
• Bitdefender – Best for ransomware and zero-day threats
• Ironscales – Best malware tool for email security
• ThreatDown – Best easy-to-deploy malware protection software
• Emsisoft – Best malware solution for SMBs
• Acronis – Best backup and malware protection
• Cynet – Best XDR and malware protection platform
• ESET – Best unified security solution

Below is a detailed review of each of these:

Webroot – Best cloud-based malware protection

Webroot is not just antivirus software; it has a wide range of features to combat malware in your IT environment. You’ll get real-time anti-phishing technology and security scans that are one of the fastest in the industry, at 20 seconds flat. Webroot also has endpoint protection and DNS protection, so that all your bases are covered.

One great addition that comes with Webroot is protection for even offline devices. Think about your local disks, USB drives, and removable storage drives such as CD and DVD drives. These need protection, too.

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (500+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Webroot Pricing:

• The Business Endpoint Protection plans start at $150 for five seats.

Bitdefender – Best for ransomware and zero-day threats

Bitdefender’s antimalware uses security content scanning and heuristic analysis to detect and block threats. It works against a wide range of malware injections, including worms and viruses, trojans, spyware and adware, key-logging software, rootkits, and more.

The first step is a traditional scanning method, where the content is compared against patterns held in a database for any anomalies. This contains all known threats and leaves devices vulnerable to zero-day threats, which aren’t yet in threat databases. To counter this, heuristic analysis and sandboxing are used to detect suspicious behavior before allowing programs to run.

G2 Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars (70 reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Bitdefender Pricing:

• All of Bitdefender’s enterprise plans are based on a custom quotation. Contact their sales team for pricing information.

Ironscales – Best malware protection for email security

If you’re looking for a tool to protect your email environment, Ironscales offers the best malware protection. It combines AI, human detection, and an antivirus engine to protect users from advanced BEC threats and account takeovers. Not only does it detect threats, but it also searches, clusters, and remediates similar variants in your mailboxes automatically.

All malware threats, as well as suspicious URLs and any malicious attachments, are removed in real-time.

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (40+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (7 reviews)

Ironscales Pricing:

• Ironscales’ enterprise plans are based on a custom quotation. You can request a custom quotation from their website.

ThreatDown – Best easy-to-deploy malware protection software

ThreatDown offers protection against advanced online threats, from ransomware to spyware and beyond. To do this, it offers threat detection and proactive threat blocking technologies that identify suspicious behavior and stop malicious processes. From its dashboard, you can view threats, take actions, and get access to detailed reports.

Malwarebytes also offers a multi-tenant console, perfect for MSPs who have multiple customers to manage, and also for corporate IT professionals who work across multiple sites.

ThreatDown is especially known for its ease of use. In fact, that’s its main pro on G2:

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (1,000+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (2,500+ reviews)

ThreatDown Pricing:

• The pricing plans for small organizations start from $690/year for 10 devices

Emsisoft – Best malware protection for SMBs

Emsisoft is the best rated malware protection tool for SMBs looking to protect their workstations, servers, and remote workplaces. It constantly monitors for malware-like actions, such as encrypting a large number of files or attempting to encrypt or delete backups. If the system detects something suspicious, an alert is automatically raised.

Emsisoft has multiple products for malware protection, but Emsisoft Business Security is best for SMBs. There is also an enterprise option for additional EDR, ransomware rollback, and threat hunting capabilities. 

G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars (20+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (10+ reviews)

Emsisoft Pricing:

• The enterprise security plans start at $2.76/month per endpoint

Acronis – Best backup and malware protection

Acronis is commonly known as backup software for small businesses and enterprises, and it is combined with advanced anti-malware features. You can find both cloud and physical backup options, including NAS, SAN, local tapes, private, and cloud. Before storing your data, Acronis removes any infection from it, ensuring that the malware can’t reinfect the system.

One Reddit user recommended Acronis and said, “We only ever used the backup part of Cyber Cloud. Which worked very well, it was rather easy to setup, pretty much set and forget.”

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (1,100+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Acronis Pricing:

• The pricing plans start from $70.99/year for one workstation, server, virtual host, or public cloud virtual machine.

Cynet – Best XDR and malware protection platform

Cynet is a cybersecurity platform that offers protection against threats, including malware, zero-day attacks, and advanced persistent threats. It employs a multi-layered malware protection, which includes ML-based static analysis, sandboxing, and process behavior monitoring.

This means that even if a successful zero-day exploit enables a connection to the attacker and downloads additional malware, Cynet will prevent it from running.

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 stars (5 reviews)

Cynet Pricing:

• To get the pricing, you need to request a custom quotation from Cynet’s sales team.

ESET – Best unified security solution

ESET is a unified security solution that integrates breach prevention, detection, and response capabilities into one platform. Its malware protection works through the ESET Detection engine. It guards against malicious systems by controlling internet, email, and file communication.

If an object classified as malware is detected, it takes automatic remediation actions by first blocking it and then cleaning, deleting, or moving it to quarantine.

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (800+ reviews)

Capterra Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (1000+ reviews)

ESET Pricing:

• Starts at $287.72/year for five devices

Atera’s integrated approach to endpoint management and malware protection

Not only is network malware protection a key part of the security stack, but so is effective endpoint management, and Atera brings both together.

Atera integrates with antivirus and malware protection tools, such as Webroot, Bitdefender, ThreatDown, Emsisoft, Cynet, ESET, and more. When combining the two, enterprises can use Atera’s advanced RMM software, AI agents, patch management, and access additional malware protection.

It’s not a choice between one or the other. Both RMM and malware protection are an important part of endpoint security. While RMM focuses on monitoring endpoint health and performance, malware solutions defend against malicious software and other threats. Together, they offer a layered defense that protects your entire organization.

If you want to learn more about our malware protection and security integrations, you can head to Atera’s integrations page.And, if you’re ready to future-proof your IT, an easy step you can take is to sign up for Atera’s 30-day free trial. No credit card required!