What is Malware and How Does it Affect Your Device?
Malware is a term for malicious software, or code, that is designed to attack and infect devices like computers, smartphones, tablets, and digital medical devices. It is used by criminals to steal information, ransom data or other assets, disrupt operations, or even commandeer those devices to form botnets to perform large scale attacks, spamming, or sabotage.
Malicious codes can be found in various sources, such as email attachments or links, instant messaging, file-sharing programs, social media accounts, and network drives. They can be hidden in a variety of ways, including using exploits and other weaknesses in applications or operating systems, as well as through the use of vulnerabilities in web browsers. Once installed, they can cause a wide range of issues from slowing the performance of your device to stealing your information.
The most common types of malware are viruses and worms. Viruses infect files and spread by sending copies of themselves to other programs on the same device or to other users. The first known virus outbreak was a program called Elk Cloner that started infecting Apple II systems in 1982.
Worms are similar to viruses, but they don’t need to be activated by a human user. They typically infect a system or group of systems by finding security vulnerabilities. Some worms also gather information about the infected device to send to a cybercriminal and give him or her control of your device. Spyware collects personal or sensitive information without a user’s knowledge, often hiding in the source code of programs and in build processes or update mechanisms in legitimate apps.