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MALWARE

                  A malware is a type of malicious program designed to damage or carryout other unwanted actions
                  on a computer system. In Spanish, 'mal' is a prefix that means 'bad,' making the term 'badware,'
                  which is a good way to remember it.

                  There are different types of malware programs that can affect the computer in a similar way a virus
                  does. Some of them are worms, trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, rootkit and backdoor.


                         WORMS


                  A computer worm is a type of malware that has the capability to replicate itself without any human
                  interaction. It consumes lots of memory space in replication. Once a computer has been infected by a
                  worm, its processing speed gets slows down, works unexpectedly and halts other tasks. A computer
                  worm can spread itself from one computer to the other by replication process.


                         TROJAN HORSE


                  The purpose of a trojan horse is to conceal itself inside the software that seems legitimate. When the
                  software is installed on the system, the trojan gets activated and infects the host system.


                         SPYWARE


                  Spyware is a type of malware program. The primary function of spyware is to snoop on a user’s
                  activity and send back the information it gathers to a hacker.


                         RANSOMWARE


                  Ransom is  the money  demanded  to  release  the hostage  kidnapped  for the  purpose.  Similarly,
                  ransomware is malicious software used to access the data of the host system illegally by encrypting
                  it. The victim has to pay a huge amount of money to the attacker to get back access to data.


                         ROOTKIT


                  Rootkit is a malware that gains administrator access to the host system. Once the attacker gains
                  access to the system, the rootkit gets hidden but retains special access to the system.


                         COMPUTER VIRUS


                  A computer virus is a ‘piece of code’ or program developed to corrupt the data or program files
                  stored on the computer system. It enters the computer without permission of the user.  The user of the
                  computer may not even realise that the computer is affected by a virus.




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