Virus Protection Tips – 7 types of malicious software that can easily infect your PC
February 10th, 2010
Go online without any protection is the same to go into battle without any weapon. Did you know that 90% of computer users in the U.S. are infected with malware?
Malware are programs that have malicious intent and can do many things. It can steal your user name, password, take control of your PC, slowing down your computer and more.
Even large companies are also using malicious software to their product. For example, Sony put a rootkit in your CDs to prevent piracy. Although they are a big company, using malicious software into your product is unacceptable.
There are few types of malware and below is the list of 7 types of malicious software and a brief description of each:
1. Spyware
As the name implies, spyware is software that spies on everything you do, which websites you are visiting, the habit of navigation, installing additional software and change your homepage. You can remove it by installing spyware.
2. Adware
Few books have different opinions about the adware, some classified as spyware, but advertising shows, others put adware on your own category. Whatever the category, adware is software that displays advertisements and may be legally installed in your PC. The amount of mass of pop-ups you are experiencing while surfing the Internet can be caused by adware.
3. Rootkit
Rootkit is software that can hide the presence inside your PC. Even though your antivirus will not be able to detect it. However, if your antivirus program to examine before the start of Windows, then you might be able to have the opportunity to remove it. Another way you can try is using the Rootkit Revealer by Sysinternal.
4. Trojan Horse
Trojan Horse is a program named after the famous Trojan horse in Greek mythology. As its name suggests, this malware, it will only work if you run and usually dress up as a folder to trick you.
5. Worm
A worm is software that can infect your PC and turn your PC into a zombie computer. A zombie computer is a computer that can be controlled by hackers and often is used to execute DDoS attacks and, for example, the worm Conficker.
6. Virus
I think this is one of the most popular malware. A computer virus is software that can replicate in your system and infect certain types of files and what is useless. There are viruses that infect files. Doc o. SWF files.
The term virus is also used to describe other types of malware such as trojan horse and worms. Technically, it is not the same.
7. Keylogger
Keylogger is a program that records everything you write, including your user name, password, credit card information and much more. Each time you use the keyboard, it will log everything and return it to its creator.
As you can see there are many online threats that can infect your PC and the only way to fight them is by obtaining knowledge. Knowledge is power and it is really true in terms of security.