Which aspect of online safety is concerned with protecting users from malicious software?

The aspect of online safety that focuses specifically on protecting users from malicious software is antivirus software. This type of software is designed to detect, prevent, and remove harmful programs such as viruses, worms, trojan horses, and other types of malware that can cause damage to computer systems or compromise user information. Antivirus software works by scanning files, monitoring for suspicious activity, and employing various techniques to defend against known and emerging threats.

Network monitoring primarily concerns itself with overseeing network traffic to identify issues or unauthorized access, rather than focusing solely on combating malicious software. Data encryption is a method used to protect information by transforming it into a secure format that is unreadable without the right decryption key, but it does not inherently protect against malware. Firewall protection is essential for filtering incoming and outgoing traffic based on predetermined security rules, which helps prevent unauthorized access but is not specifically focused on detecting or removing malware as antivirus solutions do.