Malware

Malware is a shortened form of the term "malicious software", which is used to define any sort of program or computer code that is harmful to a computer or installed and ran without the user's knowledge or consent.

Contents 1 Types of Malware 1.1 Virus Malware 1.1.1 Types of virus malware 1.1.2 Protecting Your Computer from Virus malware? 1.2 Spyware Malware 1.2.1 What are the types of spyware? 1.2.2 What does spyware do to my computer? 2 Protecting Yourself From Malware

Types of Malware

Malware can be further classified into two categories. The first is the Virus group, and the second is the Spyware group, listed below.

Virus Malware

The virus group contains programs such as viruses, Trojans, worms, backdoors, and bots, just to name a few. These are classified and named depending on different factors, such as how they spread and the actions they take.

Types of virus malware

While similar in nature, the differences between viruses, worms, and Trojans are as follows:

• Viruses are programs that attach themselves to files and replicate when the files they are attached to are used, either by opening a document for editing or running a program. Viruses require interaction with a user to spread.
• Instead of attaching to files, worms run in a computer's memory and attempt to spread to other computers connected to the infected computer, either through a network or the Internet. Typically, the worm's programming is contained in a file that is activated when a computer starts up, or when a specific date, time, or action takes place.
• Much like the object of legend that it is derived from, a Trojan infects a computer by disguising itself as a file or program that initially seems benign and then tricks the user into running it, causing various different effects as it does.
• A backdoor program allows an entity, be it a person or program, to access you system by way of an already established connection that could have been created by a worm or a Trojan. This connection ignores and bypasses any security measures that would normally stop such access.

Virus malware may, and typically does, use more than one of the above methods to spread over a network, such as a worm sending itself out in an e-mail, which then drops a Trojan and installs a backdoor.

Protecting Your Computer from Virus malware?

Ways to be safe from virus malware is to be careful of your online activities:

• do not download e-mail attachments from unknown senders
• do not open questionable e-mail attachments from known senders
• be aware of links sent to you in e-mail

However, worms can spread themselves to any computer that is connected to the Internet or a network. For this reason, you need to have programs installed to protect your computer from threats and to remove threats if they get on your computer. Follow our list of steps located here for instructions on how to download and install programs on your computer to protect you from viruses and other malware.

Spyware Malware

The spyware group contains programs such as spyware and adware, which either silently observe a computer user, or present, in most cases, unwanted information to the user. Spyware, often referred to as "adware", is used to refer to Advertising Supported Software. Typically, such programs will be installed on a system as bundled software with another program, or when certain websites are visited. Peer-to-peer programs, such as Kazaa and iMesh, often come with bundled software to enhance its usefulness, as do “free” games and other programs from various websites. No matter the installation method, spyware is used to gather information about a computer user.

What are the types of spyware?

• Spyware runs itself in the background, observing and reporting the Internet usage on a machine. Often this information is given to third parties, which is then added to their list of recipients for e-mail marketing, which most people refer to as spam.
• Adware (not to be confused with the program Ad-Aware) is when the information collected from the compromised machine is analyzed for relevant information and advertisements, either as pop-up or banner ads, reflect the most recent or most often visited websites.
• A keylogger is a type of spyware that records the keystrokes you makes. This information can then be collected by some one with access to the system or sent over the Internet, such as with a backdoor.

Not all software that provides this functionality is secretly spying on a computer’s user. Some websites offer to track page views inside their own site in order to give a specialized view to its visitors, whereas some websites offer customized searches for frequent or registered users. As a result, removing a program that appears to be acting as spyware may occasionally cause a program to stop working effectively.

What does spyware do to my computer?

Aside from the previously mentioned observing of Internet usage, there is a variety of things that can happen to a computer with spyware, such as slowing down the computer, slowing down the connection speed, and browser hijacking. When a computer has one, or more, spyware programs installed, the programs each require an amount of memory on the computer in order to run. More spyware running on a compromised machine means fewer resources available for other programs, which make the system seem unreasonably slow. These programs also report data back to a main server or database, sometimes at a constant rate, decreasing the amount of bandwidth available for viewing other websites or other Internet usage. Finally some spyware will also change the browser’s homepage to a search engine in order to gain more users, often making it so that removing the new page is difficult.

Protecting Yourself From Malware

There are many programs that can be used to protect your computer from malware threats. See our Malware Protection and Removal page for a list of suggested software.