Malware is a generic term for bad software. Malware is malicious code downloaded to your computer, and it can give the operator a truly alarming degree of control over your system, network, and data - all without you knowing. Malware is software written to infiltrate and/or damage a computer system 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.

The Internet

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

Many early malware programs, including the first worm and a number of MS-DOS viruses, was written as experiments or pranks generally intended to be fun or merely annoying instead of cause damage. But, since the dawn of broadband internet access, more malicious software has been written for a profit motive. Programs that offers to speed up the internet will most likely contain malware. Some malware will interrupt your internet connection or even cause your PC to crash. 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 worst security threat to users and institutional networks in existence.

Email

Email will continue to be an important delivery system for malware authors, though the rising adoption of email server security is making hackers turn to other ways for infection. Emailed malware is also looking more professional and people who assume they can identify any infected emails through bad spelling,bad grammar or bizarre subjects will be caught out. Be careful about attachments, particularly those that you receive from unknown people. You should also be careful with attachments from those you know. Never open any attachment you are not expecting to receive, even if it appears to come from a co-worker (in general you cannot acquire malware by reading the text of a mail message, unless your patching is out of date).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 way to new machines.

Malware is a catch-all term for various malicious software, including browser hijacking software, adware and spyware. Malware is usually included with 'spam' and avoiding this will reduce your exposure to malware. Malware is now being written for every possible platform, communications channel and businesses that do not update their systems religiously or fail to use protective software and internet protection 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.