Armored is a class that overlaps other classes of viruses; maybe multiple times.

Basically, an armored virus uses special "tricks" designed to foil anti-virus researchers. Any anti-virus researcher who wants to find out how a virus works must follow the instruction codes in the virus. By using a variety of methods, virus writers can make this disassembly task quite a bit more difficult. This usually make the virus larger as well.

Such a virus can be said to be armored.

An early virus, Whale, made extensive use of these techniques but, at the same time, was a very large virus..

Summary

• An armored virus attempts to make disassembly difficult.

How Viruses Infect
Sparse Infectors	Multipartite Viruses