Magnitude: More than 317 Million New Malware Pieces of Software Were Created in 2015
Malware is the umbrella description for software designed to penetrate someone’s computer or computer system to do something unintended: destruction, theft, monitoring, create a robot, or other specific data collection or conversion.
Trojan Horse: in computing is a non-self-replicating type of malware containing malicious code that, when executed, carries out actions determined by the nature of the Trojan, typically causing loss or theft of data, and possible system harm. Very common and dangerous.
Virus: They are self-replicating computer programs which install themselves without the user’s consent.Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected hosts, such as stealing hard disk space or CPU time, accessing private information, corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user’s screen, spamming their contacts, or logging their keystrokes to find information needed to access bank accounts or the like.
Stuxnet is a virus that was discovered in June 2010. It was designed to attack specific software running on a Windows operating system. Stuxnet almost ruined one-fifth of the Iranian nuclear centrifuge operations by spinning them out of control while simultaneously replaying the recorded system values which shows the normal functioning centrifuge during the attack.
Worms: A very common payload for worms is to install a backdoor in the infected computer to allow the creation of a “zombie” computer under control of the worm author. The infected computer then becomes a “bot” which is turned on by the controller at will to join a “botnet”.
Ransomware is a class of malware which restricts access to the computer system that it infects, and demands a ransom paid to the creator of the malware in order for the restriction to be removed. Some forms of Ransomware encrypt files on the system’s hard drive, while some may simply lock the system and display messages intended to coax the user into paying. CryptoLocker is an example of one that has been spreading over the past few years. It is very effective and is so effective, that millions of dollars in “ransom” have been paid each year to recover important data.