Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Malware

I recently spent several hours becoming a certified Malware expert and I am a computer technician. I work about 10 -20 hours a week, so I have some experience. I thought I would share some of my knowledge.

To begin, I will start by describing malware. Malware is malicious software: viruses, spyware, and other garbage. Malware is very destructive. Malware exists because someone who takes time to write a malicious computer code. A malware program that looks like a legitimate anti-malware program and just 1 person in 10000 is fooled by it they could make a large amount of money.

If you do online banking or shopping, spyware will try to steal your credit card numbers and your back account numbers. Spyware is difficult to classify and sometimes appears to be legitimate software, like "anti virus 2008" or "Vista anti spyware". Programs like these will download themselves onto your computer without you asking them to. They will then "scan" your computer for malware and tell you that "you have x number of infected files. Please buy this software to clean it out." 99% of the time the program brought in the stuff it picks up, or it identifies legitimate windows files. If you buy the software it will then infect your computer more. You will also be supplying the person who designed the malware with your credit card information and they may clean out your account.

Viruses on the other hand are usually designed to cause damage to the computer and to destroy information. Viruses can spread from computer to computer across a network and can bring the whole network down. Viruses can come into the network from downloads of .exe files and other extractable files. They also come in from SPAM (junk email).

Some valid security software titles include: McAfee, Symantic's Norton Security, AVG, Trend-Micro, and CA Internet Security. There are others. I suggest that you do a Google search before you install security software from the internet just to make sure that it is legitimate.

Some free security software programs are AVG Free, and Avast. Some free Anti-Spyware programs are: Windows Defender, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM), Super Anti-Spyware (SAS), Spybot Search and Destroy, and Adaware.

Online places that are packed full of Malware are sharing websites like LimeWire or BitTorrent. Because these websites have free sharing, people who write malware can release it online for free disguised has something else. Occasionally they build their own websites and put in lots of key words that search engines pick up and direct you to. Once there, they download their software onto your computer.

The best way to make sure your computer doesn't get infected is to make sure you have up-to-date security software. Not opening Emails that you don't know who they are from will also help.

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