What is Malware?
Malware is a term that refers to any unwanted software which is designed to damage your system and access data without your consent. Malware is identified by its malicious intent of accessing or modifying data or services on a system or network. This is a broad term which includes virus, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware and more.
Malware usually exploit the security and design defects in a software or system to enter. Sometimes, over privileged user accounts also expose vulnerabilities of the system.
How is it injected?
There are various types of malware being created and injected every day. Internet and networking of multiple systems are the major factors making our systems more vulnerable to malware. This interconnectivity of devices makes it easy for the malware to be injected and transferred from one system to another. Malware’s most common pathway is through internet – either through emails or World Wide Web.
What are the impacts?
Malware is posing serious security threats to the enterprises. These software are designed with different intentions behind it which decide their impact on the targets that they attack. Following can be the impacts of malware on your business.
Attack sites and disable services
Malware attacks can be huge to the extent that they can block your networks, bring your sites down and disrupt your services or completely disable them. This can affect your business in a big way and can result in huge losses.
Identity Theft
When malware runs in the background of your computer without your knowledge and collects personal information about you, it is referred to as Identity theft. It can record your browsing history, monitor the apps you use and copy personal details like username passwords, bank account details or address books from your system.
Identity Spoofing
When a malware attacks your system and uses your identity/credentials to accomplish some of its goals, it is termed as identity spoofing. It may be used to send emails on your behalf or run some software.
Affect network performance or complete breakdown of the corporate network
Malware poses significant threat to all networks – large or small. They can temporarily increase the traffic in the network or completely block it to practically make it unusable. This can affect the business considerably.
Steal sensitive information
On a corporate network, malware can access a particular server and can steal sensitive business information which if available to the competitors can harm your business.
Control over the applications running in your systems
In some cases, malware may be used to assess the applications running in your system or impersonate your user account to run some other malicious code.
Hardware Failure
Though it’s not common but hardware failure due to malware is still possible. This happens when inappropriate actions or repeated actions are forced on hardware through its software.
Malware and its impacts are innumerable. The only way out of this security threat is to get a best in class and latest anti-malware solution. Being the security experts, we have the knowledge and skills to incorporate latest technology in your enterprise networks and make it secure.
Contact us for any queries.