The Internet is a dangerous place

This week's entry discusses four major types of computer security threats.

Malware
Malware is short for 'malicious software', and is any form of software that tries to gain control of a computer without the owners' permission. Malware can come in the form of computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and other types of unwanted software. An example of a famous malware is the 'Melissa virus'.

Computer Virus
Computer viruses are computer programs that can replicate itself. Just like a biological virus, it attacks a host body and starts to reproduce more of itself, until the host body falls ill. However, in the case of the computer virus, it replicates itself to be sent to other computers through the internet or other removable media. Computer virus cause harm to the computer by eating up valuable resources needed for the computer to function, therefore slowing it down, prevent a user from controlling the computer, or corrupt data in the hard disk.

Trojan Horse
Derived from Greek mythology, a computer Trojan horse is a program which looks like a legitimate program, but instead carries 'hidden functions' which compromises the security of the targeted computer. Users think they are downloading or accessing the program that they want, but are totally unaware that something else is running in the background.

Spyware
As the name suggests, Spyware is a software which collects information from a computer without the user knowing. Such information can be passwords, user habits, or websites visited. It is interesting to note that unlike computer virus and worms, spyware does not replicate itself. This means that the user will need to download the spyware and install it in order to be infected. Therefore, spyware can sometimes come under the guise of a trojan horse.

Seeing that there are so many threats waiting for us on the internet, check the credibility of the websites you are visiting, don't open unsolicited emails, and beware of illegal downloads!