Differentiating Between the Types of Malware

When people think of malware, the first thing that comes to mind is computer viruses; and they wouldn’t be wrong to do so. After all, out of all the invading bits of data that can corrupt desktop and laptop parts, viruses account for the majority.

Contrary to popular thinking, however, viruses aren’t the only ones out there. If you’re not careful, you could very well unexpectedly infect pertinent data, laptop components, and the like with worms, zombies, Trojans, and whatnot.

What’s that, you say? What types of malware are there? I’m glad you asked. Below are quick breakdowns of each.

Viruses

As mentioned previously, a virus is the most common kind of malware. Like the name implies, viruses spread through self-replication within a host body (the computer).

The goal of viruses isn’t necessarily to damage hardware, but to propagate. If they damage desktop or laptop components, chances are they would be quickly detected, which would be counterintuitive to their objective. As such, virus authors often set these malware up to be practically undetectable; and that means not leaving a trace of any kind (like hardware corruption) if they can help it.

At least, that’s their plan until they spread widely enough to execute their second directive, which is to corrupt computer data. Many of these viruses are time- or event-activated, giving them ample time to spread beforehand.

That said, most antivirus programs are able to detect these before their programmed critical events.

Worms

In many ways, worms are similar to viruses. The main difference is that whereas viruses spread primarily within one computer system, worms jump from host to host via shared networks.

If left unchecked, worms are very capable of becoming global within a matter of seconds; and if they become too widespread, they will become harder to control.

Trojans

Like the Trojan Horse of a certain mythology, Trojans conceal themselves within other programs that seem harmless–like Flash games and shared videos. Once they get inside a computer system via the carrier program, that’s when they start wreaking havoc.

Trojans are usually employed to allow hackers access to remote computers. However, many Trojans have been used in conjunction with viruses or worms that, once released, present a slew of new problems for the infected system.

Spyware

Spyware are malware that specialize in snooping around a host computer’s files. They don’t actually do any immediate harm per se, but having your personal files rummaged through can’t be good. spyware also does not infect. They typically just ride inside Trojans.

Zombies

Finally, we have zombies. Zombies are similar to spyware in that they don’t directly infect, but require hitching rides on Trojans instead. However, the similarities end there.

Zombies just sit inside your computer system, waiting until a hacker commands them to enact their purpose. Once activated, they spread to other computer machines, making those other hosts into zombie machines as well. If they propagate far enough, the computers and the network can become overwhelmed with traffic.

Get yourself protected today - Contact A.J.R Computing for internet security advice and software deals.