What Is Malware? A Brief Definition by M. Brandon Wilson

What is malware? It is any malicious program installed on your computer, without your consent, by an outside third party. And to say these "third parties" have less than honorable intentions is an understatement. Some of them want to steal your information. And others just think its fun to cause damage to your computer. There are many different kinds of malware, from annoying to truly destructive. And here is what you need to look out for.

Viruses

This type of malware infects your computer, much like a virus can infect the human body. Once on your work, viruses get busy causing as much damage as possible, including deleting important information and eating up system resources. If you've had a problem with your computer freezing up--or, worse, you've experienced a computer crash--it is possible that your computer has been infected by a virus.

Spyware

These malicious programs do pretty much what the name implies. They spy on your computer activities, and then transmit that information to one of those dishonorable third parties. Spyware programs are largely responsible for the identity theft epidemic that is showing no signs of letting up any time soon. The purpose of this type of malware is to steal your personal information, especially financial information. And, once someone has that, there are almost no limits to the damage they can cause before you catch on and can even stop trying to put a stop to it.

Trojan Horses

The primary job of this type of malware is to hide, whether that's hiding itself or some other malicious program. Trojan horses disguise things like viruses and spyware as something harmless, so you won't know it's there before the damage has already been done. By which time, it might already be too late.

As much as we might want it to, the malware problem isn't going to just go away. There will always be people out there with nothing better to do than design programs to harm your computer or steal your personal information. And all you can really do is learn to protect your computer from these malicious programs.