The invention discloses a virus checking and killing method and apparatus for a whole network terminal. The method is used for a cloud server on a network side. The method comprises the steps of calling a virus feature database-based cloud checking and killing engine to scan a terminal device; if a suspected file is scanned, performing identification on the suspected file, and judging whether the suspected file is a virus file or not according to an identification result; and if yes, sending a judgment result to the terminal device and releasing virus features of the virus file into the virus feature database. According to the method and the apparatus, a virus library no longer needs to be established on a terminal side, and viruses are checked and killed by utilizing the cloud checking and killing engine on the network side, so that waste of spatial resources is reduced; and the security of the device is further ensured by utilizing a virus library with a virus feature real-time updating function.