Malware

Malware, a portmanteau (combination) of the words 'malicious' and 'software', is a term that is used to describe a broad range of potentially dangerous computer software, created with a malicious purpose in mind.

Malware could be used to refer to a virus, worm, trojan, rootkit, or similar software involving any combination of these. While often refered to in the media as a virus, malware of global scale would generally be a hybrid, including various aspects of several types of malware.

Malware is created by a range of groups and individuals, for a variety of purposes. Some examples include:

Criminal organisations create trojans aimed at wirespread infection, to create botnets able to distribute large volumes of spam, and purportate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Malware in this context is created for financial gain, with the operators renting out compromised computers, or charging per attack.