What Exactly Is Malware?
Posted on February 13th, 2009 in Computer spy software | Comments Off
Ever had pop ups explode on your screen, blocking everything else and driving you crazy? Well you’ve been a victim of malware. Malware (malicious software) is a blanket term used for any software program or code that gets installed on a user’s computer without the user’s informed consent and knowledge and wreaks havoc. It usually turns the computer into a zombie, in that the user no longer has any control of the computer’s activity and the malware can be said to have ‘taken over’. A large number of viruses, worms, Trojans, backdoors, adware and spyware come under the malware category. In other words, when the intentions of the software and its creators are malicious, it’s malware. Since the infected computer in most cases becomes a ‘zombie’ or a ‘robot’ computer, especially if the malware provides the creator with remote access to the compromised PC, malware plays a crucial role in botnet activities. According to a report by Trend Micro, an internet security technology company, botnet activities will be the number one threats on the internet in 2009 and malware, a big part of them.
hard drive every time you visit a website. They are not even files as such, just text packets. These text packets are sent to a web browser (like IE or Firefox) when it connects to any website server on the internet via a server. Then, each time you log back onto the site, the browser will send the cookie back to the server. What purpose does this serve? Well, the cookie contains information as to when you last visited the site, which pages you went to, what you did, and any information you gave out. A simple example: when you sign in to your Gmail account, you use an ID and a password. How does the Gmail server manage to identify that ID and password is correct the next time you visit? Cookies! Thus, cookies are a way of authenticating users. They are also a way of tracking your behavior on the website, each time you visit it. Often on many websites, it is impossible for you to do anything without cookies. For example, the shopping cart feature on websites requires use of cookies.
Conferences on Internet Privacy were the order of the day with most organizations holding or sponsoring seminars in some way or the other. Intel hosted a seminar at the Duke University on Protecting National Security in the new US administration. Microsoft also hosted an interactive community in San Francisco Public Library which involved discussion about the concerns of internet privacy and how Microsoft can make things better. A Microsoft representative admitted that “more and more people are now conscious of maintaining privacy on the internet, but just needed a little help.†Microsoft also mentioned that IE8 would have advanced security features.
