A common term used by hackers for viruses, worms, trojans, and other harmful computer programs to wreak havoc and gain access to sensitive data is malware, short for malicious software. In other terms, rather than a specific method or technology used to create it, the software is known as malware based on its intended use.
There are a variety of different ways to categorize malware; how the malicious software spreads is the first one. You have probably heard the terms virus, trojan, and worm used interchangeably, but they define three subtly distinct ways in which malware can infect target computers, as Symantec explains:
· A worm is a standalone piece of malicious software that spreads from computer to computer and reproduces itself.
· A virus is a piece of computer code that inserts itself into another standalone program’s code, then forces that program to take and spread malicious action.
· A trojan is a program that can not reproduce itself, but masquerades as something that the user wants and tricks them into activating it so that it can spread and damage it.
The best way to prevent malware is to ensure that your email systems are tightly locked down, with spam and phishing emails being the primary vector through which malware infects computers, and your users know how to spot danger. We recommend a combination of carefully checking attached documents and limiting potentially dangerous user behavior.
Endpoint security offerings provide in-depth protection against malware when it comes to more advanced business networks.
The million dollar question, in reality, is how to remove malware once you are infected. Malware removal is a tricky task, and the process can vary depending on the form you’re dealing with. CSO has data on how to remove or otherwise recover rootkits, ransomware, and crypto-jacking. We also have a guide to auditing the Windows registry to find out how to move forward.
Sadly, finding and removing individual malware software components can be a fool’s errand. It’s easy to get it wrong and skip a section. Plus, you do not know if the malware program has altered the computer in such a way that it will be hard to make it fully trustworthy again.
