Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of forms of harmful or intrusive software,[1] including computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, scareware, and other malicious programs. It can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content, and other software.[2] Malware is defined by its malicious intent, acting against the requirements of the computer user — and so does not include software that causes unintentional harm due to some deficiency.
Programs supplied officially by companies can be considered malware if they secretly act against the interests of the computer user. An example is the Sony rootkit, a Trojan horse embedded into CDs sold by Sony, which silently installed and concealed itself on purchasers' computers with the intention of preventing illicit copying; it also reported on users' listening habits, and unintentionally created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware.[3]
Antivirus software and firewalls are used to protect against malicious activity, and to recover from attacks.[4]
Purposes[edit]
Malware by categories on 16 March 2011.
Many early infectious programs, including the first Internet Worm, were written as experiments or pranks. Today, malware is used by both black hat hackersand governments, to steal personal, financial, or business information.[5][6]
Malware is sometimes used broadly against government or corporate websites to gather guarded information,[7] or to disrupt their operation in general. However, malware can be used against individuals to gain information such as personal identification numbers or details, bank or credit card numbers, and passwords.
Since the rise of widespread broadband Internet access, malicious software has more frequently been designed for profit. Since 2003, the majority of widespread viruses and worms have been designed to take control of users' computers for illicit purposes.[8] Infected "zombie computers" can be used to send email spam, to host contraband data such as child pornography,[9] or to engage in distributed denial-of-service attacks as a form of extortion.[10]
Programs designed to monitor users' web browsing, display unsolicited advertisements, or redirect affiliate marketing revenues are called spyware. Spyware programs do not spread like viruses; instead they are generally installed by exploiting security holes. They can also be hidden and packaged together with unrelated user-installed software.[11]
Ransomware affects an infected computer system in some way, and demands payment to bring it back to its normal state. For example, programs such as CryptoLocker encrypt files securely, and only decrypt them on payment of a substantial sum of money.
Some malware is used to generate money by click fraud, making it appear that the computer user has clicked an advertising link on a site, generating a payment from the advertiser. It was estimated in 2012 that about 60 to 70% of all active malware used some kind of click fraud, and 22% of all ad-clicks were fraudulent.[12]
In addition to criminal money-making, malware can be used for sabotage, often for political motives. Stuxnet, for example, was designed to disrupt very specific industrial equipment. There have been politically motivated attacks that have spread over and shut down large computer networks, including massive deletion of files and corruption of master boot records, described as "computer killing". Such attacks were made on Sony Pictures Entertainment (25 November 2014, using malware known as Shamoon or W32.Disttrack) and Saudi Aramco (August 2012).