Malware: Any software designed to gain unauthorised access to technical equipment, with the intention of causing damage, or financial gain to unauthorised parties.
Malware can be found in many forms, including viruses, worms, trojans, adware, spyware
A newer form is cryptojacking
Exploits system resources to carry out crypto mining
Systems often become infected by malware due to:
System vulnerabilities: Flaws in hardware or software
Can usually be fixed by patches, but these may not be applied in a timely manner
Even old vulnerabilities can still be malware targets
Social engineering: Attackers convince users to allow access to the system, this can be via methods such as downloading infected software, or infected email attachments
Ransomware: Malware that encrypts data and files on infected systems until the victim sends money to the attacker(s)
Files may also be stolen and threatened to be exposed as part of ransomware attacks.
One of the most common methods used to initiate ransomware attacks is phishing emails.