K-12 School Computer Networking/Chapter 10

Malware

DPWEISBORD

Imagine that you are having a great day and then all of a sudden your head starts to ache, your muscles may hurt, you may start to get a fever or the chills. These are all the signs that a person can be coming down with a bug or virus. Sometimes the bug can last for only a couple of days and sometimes it may take longer for the body to rid itself of the germs.

For a computer, getting sick can cause a lot of headaches as well. Malware, which many times is also known as Malicious Software is a general term. In the simplest form, it is a general term used by many computer professionals to describe annoying, dangerous, or intrusive computer code. Many times malware can cause minor problems, but sometimes these can turn major.

Malware is a term used to broadly classify a form of software which is installed in a computer system mostly without the owners permission with malicious intentions.

It is also important to note that many times the media uses the term computer virus to describe malware. While malware can be a computer virus, not all computer viruses are malware. In addition, malware should not be confused with defective software.

Types of malware may include worms, computer viruses, trojan horses, adware and other unwanted dangerous software.

Types of Malware

-Spyware -Adware -Trojans -Viruses -Browser Hijackers -Rootkit -Web bug or Web beacons -Keyloggers -Malicious Dialers -Tracking Cookies

Ways to get infected

There are a number of ways to get infected with malware. These can include visiting websites and downloading (knowingly and unknowingly) software; e-mail, ftp, downloading other programs from a disk or cd.

References

http://www.wikipedia.org/

F-Secure Quarterly Security Wrap-up for the first quarter of 2008". F-Secure (March 31, 2008).

"Google searches web's dark side", BBC News (May 11, 2007)

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/malware.ars (2004)

http://www.malwarehelp.org/

Questions

1. Another name for malware is:

 A. Wiki
 B. Malicious Software
 C. RAM
 D. Fire Wall

2. Malware's most common pathway from criminals to users is through the Internet, by email and the World Wide Web.

 A. True
 B. False

3. Many of the first forms of malware were written with the intention to be dangerous

 A. True
 B. False

4. Spyware is a "for-profit" form of malware

 A. True
 B. False

5. E-mail is the preferred way to spread malware

 A. True
 B. False

6. Infections via "drive-by" download are spread through the Web over HTTP and FTP when resources containing spurious keywords are indexed by legitimate search engines, as well as when JavaScript is surreptitiously added to legitimate websites and advertising networks.

 A. True
 B. False

Answer Key

Answers: 1:B 2:A 3:B: Many of the first forms of malware were written as experiments or pranks 4:A 5:B: The World Wide Web is criminals' preferred pathway for spreading malware. About one in ten Web pages may contain malicious code. 6:A