The concept of malware comes from the English expression "malicious software" . It is malicious software : that is, a computer program whose purpose is to cause damage to a system .
Specifically, it must be stated that it is a term that came to light in the 1990s. It was exactly in 1991 when malware was first talked about and it was a word coined by the security expert Klaus Brunnstein computer science. He created it to be able to refer to what are malicious programs.
He gave it shape using the Latin term "malus" and the word "ware", which has its origins in German.
A program is considered malware according to the effects it causes on a computer. These consequences are not the result of an error or defect, but rather the malware is programmed to cause problems .
There are, however, different types of malware. Some only seek to create minor nuisances as a joke , while others have a criminal purpose . There are malicious programs that can write invalid data to corrupt the file system or that directly erase information from the hard drive (hard drive).
As we have mentioned, there are many types of malware that exist. However, among the most significant are some such as viruses, worms, spyware , adware and even the so-called Trojans.
Among the actions that malware can carry out once it infiltrates a computer , there are distributed denial of service attacks, sending spam, and data theft. In some cases, the user is not even aware of the intrusion.
Among the signs that indicate that a computer has been a victim of malware are that it works slowly, that the system freezes regularly, that the screen is filled with advertisements or that there has been a significant loss of space on the computer. the disk.
In the same way, it is also a sign that it takes a while to load, that the computer's temperature rises sharply, that browsing is slow, that changes have occurred on the home page and that files may even have disappeared.
To protect yourself from malware it is possible to use two types of tools. On the one hand, there are programs that provide real-time protection by analyzing network traffic and preventing malware from installing. On the other hand, you can use software that searches for and eliminates malware once it has been installed on the computer.
There are a wide variety of programs on the market that present themselves as anti-malware. However, among the best known and most used are some such as Malwarebytes, Norton, Total AV, McAfee, BitDefender and even Avira, for example.
Keeping the browser and operating system updated and having a firewall and antivirus are other actions that help protect yourself from malware.