What is Malware and Spyware

Tackling Malware and Spyware had become a daily task for most of internet users. Lets see the history of these virus, the aims behind there creation, how do they enter our personal computer (pc) or a server.

First Malware found on:

Basically the first known internet Worms were created only while the programmers tried to create some software, many of programmers even are not aware of what level these worms can do the damage to system .The first well known virus attack took place in 1999, the name of virus is Melissa, and this is a Worm. It was transferred from one pc to another through email. The email had an attachment file called "LIST.DOC" [Which has the password that allows access into 80 pornographic websites]. The creator of the worm is David l. Smith (1999) who was later sent to prison for 20 months for causing a huge damage to a number of computer networks and personal computers and the total loss was calculated $80 million.

What is Malware :

" Malware comes from the phrase Malicious Software"
Malware is said as set of codes, which does some malicious [mischievous behavior or purpose ] behavior, although sometimes the intention may not be malicious. For example a software programmer writes some code to break software and he wants it to share with all the people and he sends it through an email, as soon as the email is opened the code does some malicious behavior.

Types of malware :

• Virus
• Worms
• Trojan Horses
• Spyware

What is Virus:

Virus is the most common forms of malware. If once infected I can create many forms of itself and generally it takes the forms of the already existing software and makes the to click the software that it had changes so that its process can start. The main fact about these types of virus is they spread from one software to another and can function only if the user clicks on it.
The virus can reside on storage devices like hard disks. They may even transfer from PC-PC if the Pc is connected on a network even there are chances of there exchange by infected CD's, DVD's, Pen drives and other storage media.These are generally of the extensions like .EXE, .COM and .DLL There are some instances where these virus multiplied them selves in such a huge number that it lead to corruption of entire hard disk.

What is Worm:

These are dangerous than virus, as they can infect the pc without any help from the user. They can transfer from PC-PC like the virus. They are not like Virus, which spread by infecting the files but they are created to do some special purpose like the W32.Blaster.Worm, If infected this can restart your system or lock your PC in some cases. This was found on windows platforms. Majority of malware attacks are of Worms, let's see why attackers choose this. Suppose an attacker wants to decrypt a data for which he doesn't know anything, then he has to individually try every possible case , but doing in such a way he may sometimes land in a situation where he may get nothing and even it takes him 100's of hours to do so. But if he attacks 1000 systems and gets the control of these PC's and try to decrypt it like can just give some cases to some PC's which can be done easily using a software he can easily get the decrypt code. A worm attacks one system after another and it goes on, hence using worm is easy to get access of these 1000 systems. The attackers after attacking these numbers of systems can send data around these systems and do his required tasks. Even after attacking these many systems the attacker can't be traced back so easily as all these systems are not directly connected to master attacker they are interconnected and even if he attacks a website and steals the information catching him becomes the toughest task.

What is Trojan Horse :

The word Trojan horse is linked to greek ancient history. Greeks had sent a huge horse into city of troy and in the night time the army inside the horse came out and attacked the city of troy. Similarly in our present context Trojan horse is a malware which looks like something but it does something. Generally free Malware enters our system when you download a freeware software, every time u download there is no need that it happens, but occasionally people who prepare freeware try to steal the data of ours, like passwords, credit/debit card number and even if it is army or government related system even we may loose some important data. Generally these Malware exist in .EXE files, generally windows user may not find easily because generally before vista OS window's
Os automatically used to hide the extensions, but vista has the provision to look into this problem generally now a day's attackers are sending the word doc in the form of WORD.DOCX.EXE of which window's OS hides EXE. Hence we
Think it is a word document, but there are chances for it to be a Trojan.

What is Spyware:

Spyware can be unauthorized software which runs in the background of one's PC and it collects all the information like web history, cookies and other data like some saved searches etc. These data is collected is sent back to the attacker and hence turn starts sending some pop-ups ads based on your interest, although spyware doesn't harm the computer in any way but sending your personal data to others makes it malicious.