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Malware is a generic term for software written for the sole purpose of malicious intent. Malware is malicious code planted on your computer, and it can give the operator a truly alarming degree of control over your system, network, and files - all without your knowledge. Malware is software written to infiltrate or damage a computer without the owner's consent. Malware is a combination of the words 'malicious' and 'software' and is a program written by someone with mischievous or, more usually, malicious intent.

Open nets

Trojan horses also known as droppers are used to start off a worm outbreak, by injecting the worm into users' computer. A worm, on the other hand, is a program which actively transmits itself over a network to infect other systems. One of the most common ways that malware is distributed is as a Trojan horse, bundled with a piece of downloaded software that the user downloads off the internet or a P2P file-trading network.

Most early malware programs, including the first Internet worm and a number of MS-DOS viruses, were written as test programs or just pranks generally intended to be harmless or merely annoying instead of cause serious damage. But, since the rise of widespread broadband internet access, more malicious software has been written for profit motive. Software offering to speed up the internet will most likely contain adware. Some malware is known to interrupt your internet connection or even cause your PC to hang. Internet trojan horse programs, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits, pseudorootkits, hijackers, adware, annoyware, email relays, spam proxies, spam relays, scam downloads and email/spam robots are perhaps the greatest security threat to users and institutional networks in existence.

Email

Email will continue to be an important delivery system for malware writers, though the rising adoption of email server security is making malware writers turn to other routes for infection. Emailed malware is also looking more professional and those who assume they can identify any infected emails through bad spelling,bad grammar or bizarre subjects will be caught out. Be careful about attachments, specially those that you receive from unknown people. You should also be careful with attachments from people you know. Never open any email attachment you are not expecting , even if it appears to come from a friend ( you cannot spot malware just by reading the text of a mail message, unless your patching is out of date). By 2000, the growth of email gave malware a very effective infection route into new machines.

Malware is a catch-all term for various dangerous software, including browser hijacking software, spyware and adware. Malware is usually included with 'spam' and avoiding this will reduce your exposure . Malware is now being written for every possible OS (operating system), communications channel and businesses that do not update their systems religiously or fail to use security software and internet protection software will find themselves at risk of getting infected.

Any one not investing in security software, will eventually get infected. That's the hard truth! Maybe you are already infected... You may scan your PC for FREE here: SpywareRemover or AntiSpyware 2007.

Have a safe day :-)