Understanding Malware, Spyware & Viruses

Spyware & Viruses are programs that are designed to disrupt a computer system. Both have similar goals but for different reasons. Both are considered Malware because they are malicious in nature. Both can be specifically targeted or just picked up at random.

Spyware is more associated with scams and ID theft. The goal of spyware is to scam you to trick you to pay for software that has been installed on your computer with out your knowledge. This is done by usually tricking you to click on a link or pop up that states you have an infection and it must be cleaned. Once you click on the malicious pop up, you unknowingly give the program permission to install malicious software on your machine. Spyware can block out internet access and render your machine useless if it becomes heavily infected.

Viruses on the other hand in the past have been more malicious in nature. If you remember during the late 90's and early 2000's the CIH virus which ran wild for almost 2 years. Also if you can remember the rumors of computers melting or blowing up because of a virus. This is largely untrue for the average computer user. Mostly virus these days are trojans that try to recover stored passwords for e-mail and bank accounts. However just recently a computer virus was placed in a computer running a Nuclear reactor in Iran and caused wide spread damage by running the machine at an extreme rate while showing old video tape surveillance of the reactor running normally. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018