There are a wide range of potential attack techniques used by malware:
Malware can also be installed on a computer "manually" by the attackers themselves, either by gaining physical access to the computer or using privilege escalation to gain remote administrator access.Īnother way to categorize malware is by what it does once it has successfully infected its victim's computers. A trojanis a program that cannot reproduce itself but masquerades as something the user wants and tricks them into activating it so it can do its damage and spread.A virusis a piece of computer code that inserts itself within the code of another standalone program, then forces that program to take malicious action and spread itself.
What is a worm virus on a computer software#
This means that the question of, say, what the difference is between malware and a virus misses the point a bit: a virus is a type of malware, so all viruses are malware (but not every piece of malware is a virus). As Microsoft puts it, " is a catch-all term to refer to any software designed to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network." In other words, software is identified as malware based on its intended use, rather than a particular technique or technology used to build it. Malware, short for malicious software, is a blanket term for viruses, worms, trojans and other harmful computer programs hackers use to wreak destruction and gain access to sensitive information.