Types Of Malware (Part-2)

In this blog, I covered the remaining 4 types of malware which are in (Part -2) if you didn't have a look at Part-1 then  click here 

5. Spyware

Spyware, as the name suggests, helps hackers spy on any systems and their users. This kind of malware can be used for key-logging and similar activities, which is helping hackers to gain access to personal data (including login credentials). Spyware is a type of malware that helps hackers to gather confidential information of any person or top organization. Spyware is also used by people who want to keep a check on the computer activities of a person that personally known to them. 

6. Adware

Adware is nothing but it is used to expose users to unwanted, potentially malicious advertising. Adware (advertising-supported software) is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during the installation process. There are many adware programs that redirect a user, during browser searches, to look-alike web pages that have promotions of other products. Removing adware is very easy. You just need to find the malicious executable and delete it.

7. Fileless malware

Fileless malware is a slightly different category of malware, but more of a description of how they exploit and persevere. Traditional malware travels and affects new systems using the file system. Fileless malware, which today consists of over 50 percent of all malware and growing, is malware that doesn’t directly use files or the file system. Instead, they exploit and spread in only memory or using other “non-file” OS objects such as registry keys, APIs, or scheduled tasks. Many file-less attacks begin by exploiting an existing valid program, becoming a newly launched “sub-process,” or by using existing legitimate tools built into the OS (like Microsoft’s PowerShell). The end result is that file-less attacks are harder to detect and stop comparatively other malware. If you aren’t already familiar with common file-less attack techniques and programs, you probably should be if you want a career in computer security.

8. Bot/Botnets

A Bot is a software application that runs automated tasks on command. They’re used for legitimate purposes, such as indexing search engines, but when it used for malicious purposes, they take the form of self-propagating malware that can connect back to a central server. Usually, bots are used in large numbers to create a botnet, which is a network of bots used to launch broad remotely-controlled floods of attacks, such as DDoS attacks. Botnets can become quite expansible. For eg. the Mirai IoT botnet ranged from 8,00,000 to 2.5M computers.

Some examples of malware 

We've already discussed some of the important malware threats. But there is a long history of malware, dating back to infected floppy disks swapped by Apple II hobbyists in the 1980s and the Morris Worm spreading across Unix machines in 1988. Some of the other dangerous malware attacks.
 

• ILOVEYOU, a worm that spread like wildfire in 2000 and did more than $15 billion in damage
• SQL Slammer, which ground internet traffic to a stop within minutes of its first rapid spread in 2003
• Conficker, a worm that exploited unpatched flaws in Windows & leveraged a variety of attack vectors from injecting malicious code to phishing emails to ultimately crack passwords and hijack Windows devices into a botnet.
• Zeus, a late '00s keylogger Trojan that targeted banking information & as well as other information.
• CryptoLocker, the first extensively  ransomware attack, whose code keeps getting repurposed in similar malware projects
• Stuxnet, an utmost sophisticated worm that infected computers worldwide but only did real damage in one place: the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, where it destroyed uranium-enriching centrifuges, the mission it was built for by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

How to prevent malware

As we have seen some remedies of how to prevent malware in Types of malware (Part-1). If you didn't have a look at in Part-1 then click here.