Malware

Nowadays it is not only viruses that can cause trouble for a computer, but also malware programs. This word is a combination of two words – malicious and software, what means that such programs will harm a computer. Usually such software is used to gain access to important or/and confidential information which can be used in the future. Malware can execute a big variety of different actions. It can baffle your computer completely by hijacking the Internet browser or showing annoying messages and/or warnings, redirecting your search attempts and finally making your computer extremely slow and unstable.

Depending on the underlying goal of the virus, malware might be defined in such forms: worms, Trojan horses, spyware and other undesirable programs. Moreover, it’s necessary to differentiate real malware from defective software that has a legitimate function, but contains bugs. Malware may be disguised on official sites as original software.

What is the purpose of writing these kinds of programs? Still, they are multifunctional and the harm that they may cause can range from a joke to a real disaster. 30 years ago, malware programs were generally created in order to play pranks on somebody. For example, there was a very popular virus from that time, which opened the text documents and changed all the words from “yes” to “no”. In order to work, malware viruses usually need a user’s participation such as opening a suspicious e-mail attachment. But worms and other such type of viruses are generally ignored and executed without any participation from the computer’s user.

The most common and successful virus that can hurt the operating system is a malware called the Trojan horse virus. This one is a careful virus that can represent itself like it is some other kind of software and thus easily gains access to the important information. This group of viruses functions like a ticking time bomb or a logical bomb. It can activate itself at any preset time or when you or the operating system performs some predetermined task. It can be anything from changing the time to erasing your hard drive, but usually it is opening files or surfing the internet.

Pranks and jokes are not very common nowadays. Malware viruses are currently used to profit from the information that is stolen with their help. A new type of malware has recently appeared. It is called the Keystroke logger. With the help of this software, it can keep track of every keystroke made on a computer, so that passwords are stolen along with essential codes and other information. This software also works in a covert manner so that the user doesn’t even know that the computer is being spied upon. Such malware is referred as spyware or crimeware and is considered to be one of the most dangerous and worrisome of virus programs that have ever challenged users.