What is Malware – Definition and Meaning of Malware

What is Malware – Definition, and Meaning of Malware, it is a short form of the term ‘malicious software’. Basically, it is a type of software which is used for the disruption of computer operations, for gathering sensitive information of the system user, and even for gaining unauthorized access to the private computer system of a particular user. It is defined as malicious software because of its malicious intents of acting against the computer user’s requirement. It does not include that software which causes the intentional harm to the system because of some sort of deficiency. In general, such software is used for either spying over the computer related activities of the user for longer duration without user’s knowledge or for stealing some information. The increasing competition has led to various other uses of the malicious software such as causing harm to the computer system, crashing of the hard disk, deleting the files or even gaining access to remote computers and altering the information over the system as per wish. Such activities are considered as unethical.

Now you must be thinking how are they installed on your system without your knowledge? The answer is very simple. The Internet is the hub of such software. Such malicious malware software is attached with other useful software. So when we download a particular file, audio, video or any software, the attached malicious content is also downloaded. And when the software is installed by the user, they also get automatically installed over the system and perform the task for which they are designed.   

The malware can be categorized into different categories on the basis of their working and intents. A few of them are mentioned below-

Viruses- it is a computer program which remains hidden in some another program which is seemingly innocuous and produces multiple copies of itself. Also, it inserts itself in various other programs and files and then performs the malicious actions like destroying data etc.

Worms- they are the programs which hold the property of replication. This means this program replicates itself into various copies, leading to the filling of the entire storage space and thus hindering the work of the user.

Trojan horses- it is basically a program which invites the computer user to install it as it disguises itself as desirable and normal software and has malicious or harmful executables codes that have a particular description. It may come into effect immediately performing undesirable effects like-encryption of the user’s file, and performing various other malicious activities.