As an ethical hacker, you will surely find
yourself from time to time looking at a piece of malware, and you may need to make
some sort of determination about the risk it poses and the action to take to remove it.
The next chapter gives you a taste of this area of security. If you are interested in this subject,
read the references for more detailed information.
Malware
Malware can be defined as any unintended and unsolicited installation of software on a
system without the user knowing or wanting it.
Types of Malware
There are many types of malware, but for our purposes, the following list of malware
will suffice.
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Virus
A virus is a parasitic program that attaches itself to other programs in order to infect that
program and perform some unwanted function. Viruses range in severity and in the
threat they pose. Some are easy to detect and others are very difficult to detect and
remove from a system. Some viruses use polymorphic (changing) technology to morph
as they move from system to system, thereby prolonging their detection. A virus requires
users to assist it by launching the application or script that contains the virus. The users
may not know they have executed a virus; they may instead think they are opening an
image or a seemingly harmless application.
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