Malware is a piece of software that is widely used to harm a single computer or multiple computers for one’s ill intentions.
Malware stands for malicious software, once injected by any means can easily lead to device control and turn it into bots, disrupt important business operations and can also leads to data theft.
It can be a virus, executable files from an untrusted location or any piece of software that may look like a regular file but is constructed to cause potential harm to an individual or any enterprise environment.
Malwares are like ill-intentioned individuals whose company can ruin’s one’s success journey.
We have various such examples where malware led attacks have caused data theft, monetary harms to many people around us.
One such example is trojan horse that seams like a normal and legitimate code but can be used to exploit vulnerabilities and gain access to systems. Let’s take an example to understand this.
Sam needed a content editing software to edit his travel videos. He wanted a free software to do the job and downloaded some random software from the web that was malicious.
After installing the software, the device turned slow and unresponsive.
The overall performance was affected and due to this and he was not able to post his content on time. This led to delays in his work and missed his follower targets.
He had to reach to the service centre and get it fixed, additional cost was involved. After some days he account got hacked and lost some money also.
It was later found out that the software he installed was malicious and was the root cause of all these issues.
FAQ
Q1. How can malware affect a normal life of an individual?
Malwares once, they make their way, can seal information like bank account details and can lead to monetary losses. Data theft and then encrypting it and then asking for ransom for decryption is quite common.
Q2. How can we protect our systems from malware?
There are various ways through which you can protect your systems from malwares. Some cost money and other way is just being cautious at every step.
- Do not download software’s from untrusted locations over the web. Rely only on secure networks that use techniques like encryption.
- Use a good antivirus to protect your devices from such malwares.
- Update your operating system with latest updates so that no malware can exploit any existing loopholes, we call them vulnerabilities.
