System and method for acceleration of malware detection using antivirus cache

A system for accelerating launch of an antivirus application, the system comprises:

• a random access memory for storing run-time data of the antivirus application;
• a non-volatile memory for storing:
• an antivirus database containing different types of code and data;
• and
• an antivirus cache comprising a plurality of sections, wherein each section stores the same type of code and data;
• and
• a processor coupled to the random access memory and non-volatile memory, the processor being configured to:
• determine if the antivirus database requires updating;
• load one or more updates for the antivirus database, wherein each update contains different types of code and data;
• convert loaded updates into the antivirus cache, wherein the same types of data from each loaded update is stored as a data file in a corresponding section of the antivirus cache;
• and
• when the antivirus application is launched, map at least a portion of at least one data file in the antivirus cache into the random-access memory without any further conversion for use by the antivirus application.

A computer program product embedded in a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the computer-readable storage medium comprises computer-executable instructions for accelerating launch of an antivirus application on a computer system, the medium comprises:

• instructions for determining if an antivirus database associated with the antivirus application requires updating;
• instructions for loading one or more updates for the antivirus database, wherein each update contains different types of code and data;
• instructions for converting loaded updates for the antivirus database into an antivirus cache associated with the antivirus application, wherein the same types of data from each loaded update is stored as a data file in a corresponding section of the antivirus cache;
• and
• when the antivirus application is launched, instructions for mapping at least a portion of at least one data file in the antivirus cache into a random-access memory of the computer system without any further conversion for use by the antivirus application.