Patent attributes
Systems and methods are provided that enable probabilistic application of data traffic scanning in an effort to catch malicious software or code being carried by the data traffic. The methodology and systems operate by monitoring data traffic in an data network via an interface with the data network, calculating a first conditional probability that content in first given data traffic being monitored is malicious, calculating a second conditional probability that content in second given data traffic being monitored is malicious, ranking the first and second conditional probabilities resulting in ranked conditional probabilities, and performing at least one of anti-virus (AV) or anti-malware (AM) scanning of the content of the first or second given data traffic depending on whose conditional probability is ranked higher in the ranked conditional probabilities.