Stephanie Majors's List: Malware

• Malware, short for malicious software, is software used to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems.^[1] It can appear in the form of code, scripts, active content, and other software.^[2] 'Malware' is a general term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software.
• Malware includes computer viruses, ransomware, worms, trojan horses, rootkits, keyloggers, dialers, spyware, adware, malicious BHOs, rogue security software and other malicious programs; the majority of active malware threats are usually worms or trojans rather than viruses.
• computer contaminant,
• Software such as anti-virus, anti-malware, and firewalls are relied upon by users at home, small and large organizations around the globe to safeguard against malware attacks which helps in identifying and preventing the further spread of malware in the network.^[8]
• Today, malware is used primarily to steal sensitive information of personal, financial, or business importance by black hat hackers with harmful intentions
• Malware is sometimes used broadly against government or corporate websites to gather guarded information,^[10] or to disrupt their operation in general.
• gain personal information such as social security numbers, bank or credit card numbers, and so on. Left unguarded, personal and networked computers can be at considerable risk against these threats.
• The prevalence of malware as a vehicle for Internet crime, along with the challenge of anti-malware software to keep up with the continuous stream of new malware, has seen the adoption of a new mindset for individuals and businesses using the Internet.
• The best-known types of malware, viruses and worms, are known for the manner in which they spread, rather than any specific types of behavior
• erm computer virus is used for a program that has infected some executable software and, when run, causes the virus to spread to other executables. On the other hand, a worm is a program that actively transmits itself over a network to infect other computers. These definitions lead to the observation that a virus requires user intervention to spread, whereas a worm spreads itself automatically.^[24
• Trojan horses
• Rootkits
• Backdoors

11 more annotations...

• Short for "malicious software," malware refers to software programs designed to damage or do other unwanted actions on a computer system. In Spanish, "mal" is a prefix that means "bad," making the term "badware," which is a good way to remember it (even if you're not Spanish).
• ommon examples of malware include viruses, worms, trojan horses, and spyware

• et us take the easy one first. "Malware" is short for malicious software and is typically used as a catch-all term to refer to any software designed to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network, whether it's a virus, spyware, et al.