-: A quick summary of malware.
In this section of the course,
we covered a lot of different types of malware.
In this video, I wanted to give you
just a quick one line summary
of each type that you need to remember for the exam.
If you remember nothing else from this section,
this is the minimum information you have to know.
First, viruses.
Viruses are code that infect a computer
when a file is opened or executed.
When you think about a virus,
remember, if it requires user action
to be able to be opened, installed, or spread,
it's likely a virus.
Worm.
A worm acts a lot like a virus
but instead, it's able to do self-replication.
It doesn't need any user action to be able to spread itself.
A Trojan.
A Trojan is a program
that appears to do one desirable function
but instead it does the desired function
and malicious functions as well.
Remember, the most common type nowadays
is what's known as a RAT,
a Remote Access Trojan.
Ransomware.
Ransomware is going to take control of your computer
or your data unless you pay them some money.
Again, they're holding it for ransom.
They usually do this by encrypting your files.
Spyware.
Spyware is a software that collects your information
without your consent.
They're spying on you
and then they're advertising to you
or doing other things of that nature.
A rootkit.
A rootkit is going to gain
administrative level control over your system
by targeting the boot loader
or the kernel of the operating system.
And finally, spam.
Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems,
whether chat, email, or instant message.
The most common of these though, is definitely email.
Now, on exam day, you may see questions that ask you things
like based on the description of a malicious file,
what category does it fall into?
Is it a virus, or is it a worm,
or is it a Trojan?
You may also be given definitions
based on the 10 different types of viruses
we talked about earlier.
So if you remember the different types of viruses
and the general categories that we covered in this lesson,
you're going to do great on exam day.