Being connected brings us together and enriches our lives in countless ways. It lets you connect with friends and family a world away, find kindred spirits, or buy almost anything you can imagine. The internet is generally safe, but there are dangers if you use it irresponsibly.
Some threats can compromise your online accounts. Others, like malware, do their damage to computers and smartphones. This guide will introduce you to the concept of malware, how it operates, and how you can detect it. Lastly, it outlines several steps you should follow to make you a tough nut for malware to crack.
What Is Malware?
Malware is short for malicious software. It means any kind of program that installs onto your system without your consent and tries to harm you once there. Viruses are the most well-known types of malware, but many more variants exist.
For example, Trojans and spyware are stealthy and don’t directly affect files. Instead, they hide and report on your behavior. Adware is more annoying than dangerous. It could cause pop-ups to appear when you turn your computer on or redirect you to a site in hopes of buying something.
Ransomware is among the fastest-growing and most dangerous malware. It takes your files hostage, encrypting them so you lose access. If you don’t have backups, the only way to get those files back is by meeting the crook’s demands.
How Does Malware Spread?
It’s disconcertingly easy to stumble upon malware. The most common way of getting infected is by clicking a link, and there are lots of delivery methods.
Many people get infected by clicking links in emails they think are from trusted sources. These emails create a sense of urgency to persuade recipients to follow the links or open attachments. Once they do, they go to a site that can contain malware or harvest private information like usernames, passwords, or credit card numbers.
Hackers sometimes take legitimate sites over and put their links among real ones. Have you ever searched for something, and the site you found it on had several giant DOWNLOAD buttons next to the actual one? That’s also an example.
Malware is sometimes a package deal. You might want to install one program only for it to install something else during the process. Infected storage drives, SD cards, or USB sticks can infect your device when you connect them.
How to Protect Yourself from Malware
Adopting common but proven cybersecurity best practices should be your first step, whether you’re a concerned individual or run a small business.
- Always have backups of your most sensitive files, and make sure one of them isn’t in the same physical location as the others.
- Check that your anti-malware software, operating system, and all programs are updated. Keeping everything up to date on your device will increase its security.
- Take stock of your passwords and change any that are old, too short, or easy to guess. Opt-in for a reliable password manager for secure credential storage.
- Learn to recognize phishing emails and social engineering attempts.
- Avoid sketchy sites and downloads that seem too good to be true. Don’t click on any links unless you are sure the link is legitimate.
Adopting these behaviors takes little time and effort but can save you from malware or at least protect your most precious data and accounts if you do become a victim.
How to Detect Malware?
There are many types of malware, and some are easier to detect than others. You might be able to find some if you notice unusual behavior. For example, if you see more pop-ups than usual, your device is running noticeably slower, or you keep getting redirected to sites you’ve never visited. Ransomware will make its presence known immediately, while some other threats avoid detection by disabling tools like the registry editor or Task Manager if you’re on Windows.
Anti-malware programs will do a much more thorough job, though. Think of anti-malware as an upgraded, super-charged version of an antivirus. It can detect and get rid of more threats and has more tricks up its sleeve to do so.
Signature-based detection has been the standard anti-malware ever since the first antivirus programs. Every piece of malware has unique identifiers. Once it’s clear what it does, these identifiers are added to a threat database. Anti-malware compares its database to the signatures of scanned files. If there’s a match, it quarantines them.
Modern malware is hardly like that anymore. Thanks to machine learning, thousands of threats emerge daily. Luckily, anti-malware creators are keeping up by applying behavior-based detection methods.
These look at what files are doing to your device, like trying to install new programs or enable autorun on startup. Such methods let anti-malware tools develop on-the-fly solutions and deal with threats proactively.
