Malware is a diverse term used to describe various malicious software, this includes viruses, adware, spyware, browser hijacking software, and fake security software.
Once installed on your computer, these programs can affect your privacy as well as your computer’s security. Malware is known for stealing personal information and relaying it to advertisers and other third parties without user consent. This would be as a result if you were to suddenly have an increase of spam. Some programs are also known to contain worms and viruses that’s sole purpose to cause computer damage and wreak havoc. This is further explained below in “Types of Malware” and “The goal of Malware”.
Types of Malware
Viruses which are the most commonly-known form of malware and potentially the most destructive can do anything from erasing the data on your computer to hijacking your computer to attack other systems, send spam, or host and share illegal content.
Spyware collects your personal information and passes it on to interested third parties without your knowledge or consent. Spyware is also known for installing Trojan viruses.
Adware displays pop-up advertisements when you are online.
Fake security software poses as a legitimate software to trick you into opening your system to further infection, providing personal information, or paying for unnecessary or even damaging “clean ups”.
Browser hijacking software changes your browser settings (such as your home page and toolbars), displays pop-up ads and creates new desktop shortcuts. It can also relay your personal preferences to interested third parties.
The goal of malware
Pranksters and malicious hackers alike write tens of thousands of new malicious applications daily, for a variety of reasons. Pranksters simply want to see the havoc their programs can wreak, or want to get a special message out. Hackers do it to further their reputations, disrupt operations or gather private information.
On the personal-computer level, malware can steal information valuable to identity thieves, such as credit card information, email addresses and passwords etc.
Many hackers design malicious software with the goal of making money. Certain malware applications disguise themselves as legitimate applications, or even fake antivirus applications, in order to gain access to your computer. The fake antivirus software generates pop-up windows telling you your computer is infected, and that only by buying its bogus products will you be clean.
Keystroke logging is when a piece of malware tracks every keystroke you make on your computer’s keyboard. Based on the keystrokes, hackers are able to pick out login IDs and passwords to bank accounts and whatever other websites you may be visiting.
A botnet is a network of computers working together over the Internet. Many piece of malware infect computers and draft them into botnets to be used as part of a spam campaign — to send spam emails throughout the world — or a distributed denial-of-service attack, which repeatedly loads a website with bogus requests with the intention of making it unreachable.
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