Trojans, another form of malware, are generally agreed upon as doing something other than the user expected, with that "something" defined as malicious. Most often, trojans are associated with remote access programs that perform illicit operations such as password-stealing or which allow compromised machines to be used for targeted denial of service attacks. One of the more basic forms of a denial of service (DoS) attack involves flooding a target system with so much data, traffic, or commands that it can no longer perform its core functions. When multiple machines are gathered together to launch such an attack, it is known as a distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS.
While purists draw a firm distinction between viruses, worms, and Trojans, others argue that it is merely a matter of semantics and give the virus moniker to all viruses, worms, and Trojans. To satisfy both parties, the term malware, a.k.a. malicious software, was coined to collectively describe viruses, worms trojans and all other forms of malicious code.
Malware can be defined as any program, file, or code that performs malicious actions on the target system without the user's express consent. This is in contrast to Sneakyware, which can best be described as any program, file, or code that the user agrees to run or install without realizing the full implications of that choice. One of the best examples of Sneakyware was Friendly Greetings, a greeting-card trick that exploited users' willingness to say Yes without reading the licensing agreement. By doing so, they were blindly agreeing to allow the same email to be sent to all contacts listed in their address book.
While purists draw a firm distinction between viruses, worms, and Trojans, others argue that it is merely a matter of semantics and give the virus moniker to all viruses, worms, and Trojans. To satisfy both parties, the term malware, a.k.a. malicious software, was coined to collectively describe viruses, worms trojans and all other forms of malicious code.
Malware can be defined as any program, file, or code that performs malicious actions on the target system without the user's express consent. This is in contrast to Sneakyware, which can best be described as any program, file, or code that the user agrees to run or install without realizing the full implications of that choice. One of the best examples of Sneakyware was Friendly Greetings, a greeting-card trick that exploited users' willingness to say Yes without reading the licensing agreement. By doing so, they were blindly agreeing to allow the same email to be sent to all contacts listed in their address book.
