What is Adware & What is Malware

October 16, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized

Understanding Adware and Malware just a little better.

Malware includes computer viruses, the trojans, most of the rootkits, the spyware, fraudulent adware and various other malicious as well as unwanted software. Let us explore some of them to know how they infect our computers.

1.Trojan Horse:
Trojans can infect your computer through many routes, especially when you download a file or application. Say, you download a calculator program. You install it and the calculator works all right. Gradually problems arise in your computer -when you browse the Internet you begin to get bothersome pop-ups. Then pop-ups come on your monitor at random even when you don’t explore the Internet. This nasty pop-up program had been concealed within that calculator program and its installation rooted itself inside programs which previously existed on the computer.

2. Rootkit in the e-mail attachment:
Rootkits are one or more that one programs that gets installed in your computer and hide themselves and slowly start taking control of the administrative privilages. It can even modify the vital configuration of the operating system. For instance, you receive a funny video from a friend and after you double-click one security warning appears but you click OK and continue. Later you get to know that your friend did not send you any video. In reality something occurred in the backdrop when you had clicked on that video, a malware got installed. Though nothing can be noticed but your computer may be utilized like bot-net drone for attacking the websites or even other computers.

3. Spyware in the “drive by download”
It happens at times that on clicking any link in your search results you instantly get pop-ups. Then you close those pages but still you get some weird errors. You might think nothing damaging could have happened and you merely “drove by” that website. Though you did not set up anything but the software flaw of your computer allowed that website to install malware without authorization. As a result your system gets malware resident. All information you enter in web like the forms, the login pages or chat and whatever websites you visit can be transmitted towards the site of the hacker.

Bad adware generally penetrates the computer at some point during web surfing. The programmers craft software which functions as virus or as Trojans. For instance, you download one peer-to-peer client for file sharing which includes hidden adware. The ads start showing up once program files have been loaded onto your system. Then the program might plant the tracking cookies, the keyloggers or even perform invasive hard drive scans. If undetected, the malicious adware program could transmit the numbers of credit card, your passwords and pictures plus other susceptible and sensitive personal information to the deceitful people who might take advantage of it.

The usual functions of malware are

- robbing your private information along with address book.

-flooding and hijacking the browser with the pop-up advertising.

- spamming the inbox with its advertising email.

- slowing down your connection.

Adware can affect your computer in 3 ways:

It might slow down your computer through adding sites plus using the available memory. Your homepage can be hijacked by adware and it directs you to websites which don’t interest you.

It permits pop up ads which are not just infuriating but also very disruptive to the system.

Adware is one serious security risk. As they run each time you start the computer, they trigger slowdowns along with software conflicts which makes the computer unstable.

Your system can be infected by the malware in many ways. Malware usually comes packaged with the programs like Kazaa, iMesh, and similar programs of file sharing programs. Then some malware come from some websites too.

Adware is downloaded without you knowing as people generally do not wish to see ads every time they run one program. Adware is attached on the program downloads which you want. A number of freeware programs contain adware related with them and when you download it then you end up downloading adware which is enclosed with it. Some instances of freeware which has adware are the search engines, the updates of instant news as well as weather, cool mouse pointers, the desktop themes as well as backgrounds, P2P encodes for file sharing and the emoticons utilized in emails.

The purpose of the adware primarily is

- revenue generation for different software developers which is achieved by display of advertisements which are web based.

- trailing people’s actions on Internet so as to present ads which will interest you.

The purpose of malware is to partly control a user’s computer to

– subject a user to promotion
– present DDoS on the another service
– proliferate spam
– trail actions of users activity
– do frauds like identity thefts

Adware is employed by companies which design as well as offer freeware as a means of increasing revenue along with sustaining growth of programs. Adware is utilized to fund a free edition of a kind of software with the intention that potential customers be able to try it so that on liking it they can purchase the complete version which is non-adware supported.

Malware exists as its creators find it useful in realizing their goal which is that of cracking the security of diverse computer as well as network systems so as to gain accessibility into the computing resources illegally.

AVG is popular Anti Virus software which provides real-time virus shield which continuously scans the computer for the virus threats. If it discovers adware or malware it instantly alerts the user about the problem. It scans the file and can identify the section of a program or a complete program that is working a s a rootkit and can delete them successfully.

Kaspersky is very useful virus-removing software. It updates its database frequently and can almost always find out the program that is hidden in the file level. It scans emails, data trafficking activities, etc., to identify the adware or rootkit.

There are free and paid antivirus software. The paid anti-virus packages provide high levels of security and fast updates on finding new viruses along with excellent customer support. A paid anti-virus is ideal if you handle a business or keep delicate information on the computer. It is meager price you pay to ensure the securities of your data. The free programs are meant only for personal use.

With free anti-virus software it is found that the majority of the organizations providing free program additionally market the paid version of the identical software. This undoubtedly denotes that paid anti-virus software is different from free ones in that the former renders greater support to your system. In case of free software the support is restricted to the FAQs, emails and mostly on Internet community when detailed assistance is required.

Though the ‘signature’ updates for both paid and free AV are basically the same yet they are provided more frequently to the former as compared to the latter. Most of the paid anti-virus software includes an advanced ‘proactive’ component which helps avert the system from getting infected. On the other hand the free ones aren’t that good at preventing adware and malware from entering your computer.

Tags: