What is Malware? Types, Prevention, Detection, and Recovery

We hope most people heard the name called malware; in short, you can even say it is  malicious software. This is a blanket term of the virus, trojans, worms and other computer hackers who use the wreak destruction access sensitive information.

Malware is designed in such a way that it damages a single computer, server, or network. This software is identified as malware, is intended to use. The virus is one type of malware but all malware is not virus.

Types of Malware

There are different types of malware, those are discussing below

1. Worm- It is a standalone piece that reproduces itself and gets spread from computer to computer.
2. Virus- This acts as a computer code and insert itself within the code by a standalone program; after that, it takes malicious action to spread itself.
3. Trojan- Trojan act like a program that cannot reproduce itself, but users can trick them into activating it so that it will not damage and does not spread.
4. Spyware- This is defined by Webroot Cybersecurity which the main purpose is to gather data to an unsuspecting user secretly. Spyware works as spies in your computer and the data (including sending and receive). While sending the information to the third party, also goes with the sender.
5. Rootkit- This famous malware is described by TechTarget. This is a very common software tool that provides the threat actor remote access, and takes over the system’s control.
6. Adware- This is a browser that redirects to web advertisements that mainly seek to get downloaded further. Adware primarily comes from free program like a browser extensions, games, and much more.
7. Ransomware- It encrypts hard drive files and demands for payment. This is high-profile malware which outbreaks from the last few years, and without the decryption key, it is mathematically impossible for the victim to regain access to their files. It claims that it has taken control of your computer to demand the ransom.
8. Cryptojacking- This is another way where attackers can force the user to supply Bitcoin. It infects your computer and uses your CPU cycle into mime Bitcoin for the attacker’s profit. This is very mining software that always runs in the background of JavaScript, operating system, and much more.

How to Prevent Malware

Malware mainly infects computers through spam and phishing email. If you think to prevent malware, you need to make sure that your email systems are locked down tightly. Your user will know to spot the danger. Whenever you check any attachment, you need to restrict dangerous user behavior. You need to be familiarizing users with phishing scams, and you need to use your common sense.

When you need to take more preventive measures, and there are few steps that you need to adopt. You need to keep your system updated and patched, and maintain the hardware inventory to protect your infrastructure and continue the vulnerability assessment. When you do the ransomware attack, you need to always keep the backup files and make sure that when you want them back you can get those any time.

Here we can discuss few steps for the prevention of malware attacks; those are talking about below

You need to make sure that you get all security updates and patches installed has installed so that it you can protect your system against malware and security risks. This runs with some popular programs like Adobe, Java, Quick time, etc.

1. User should not accept any suspicious link and emails because phishing emails often make the legitimate order to trick the user and force to download malware and reveal the sensitive information. You need to remember that it is very rare where business will ask you passwords and other personal information through mail so if you get all types of questions, you must be sure that these are phishing attacks.
2. You need to avoid using the suspicious websites, including URLs, website features, and much more. You need to be a little cautious and do not click on any sensitive data. You need to make sure that whichever website you visit must be authentic, and before you click, you need to read the URL carefully.
3. When you download the software, you need to make sure that you review that before you go for download, you can even check the trial version and ensure legitimacy. When any website asks you to provide a password, you need to see that you apply a strong password so that nobody can steal it.

Malware Protection

If you think about the malware protection product, you need to take the an antivirus software which can occur despite the virus. It comes with high-end security, which acts as a backbone for the anti-malware defense. The best antivirus software are Symantec, Trend Micro, Kaspersky Lab, AV-TEST, and much more.

If you are looking for something very advanced corporate network, you need to select something that provides the defense in dept against malware. They are not only in signature-based malware detection; you can expect from them anti-spyware, application control, personal firewall, and other host intrusions.

How to Detect Malware

Detecting malware is entirely possible, and when your system gets infected, you need to despite your best efforts. When you are into corporate IT, there are not much advanced visibility tools where you can see what is going on in your network and easily detect malware infections. Maximum malware uses the web to send the information back to their controller so that they can get the network traffic signals of malware infection otherwise, you may get a miss. You can get a wide range of network monitoring tools, including theSIEM toolthat evolved from the log management program. These tools work is to analyze the log from the different computers and appliances all the infrastructure, which is giving the sign of problems, including the infection of malware.

Malware Removal

How will you remove malware after you get infected, and this is the question from all the users? Removing the malware is a very tricky process. This process depends upon the requirement, whichever you are dealing with. CSO knows how to deal with the malware, and they also know the recovery of it. There are few tool kits that can help you removal such as rootkit, cryptojacking and ransomware. You will also have a tool to clean your system.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You can follow the above instructions to ensure the employee’s and end user’s safety. Users will also help to protect things against malware attacks