Malware Trends: Good News and Bad News

CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE 7 7 CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE Name of the Student Name of the University Author Note Abstract As per the research of 2005 malware trends, there are many good news and bad news. And the bad news is characteristic of malware (viruses, Trojans, spyware, worms, adware, and other viruses) is continuously changing from time to time.

Running head: CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE
CRITICAL THINKING: MALWARE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
As per the research of 2005 malware trends, there are many good news and bad news. Good
news is that, from the viewpoint of economic impression, most financial losses occur from
malware in 2005 since 2002. And the bad news is characteristic of malware (viruses, Trojans,
spyware, worms, adware, and other viruses) is continuously changing from time to time. It
was attacking the operating system and users. It was also spreading in big and small
companies. Another word, the impact of malware on the economy is dropping day by day
unless organizations are focused on their security. This project can provide details
introduction of malware and how to determine their type and locations.

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Introduction
Malware is a software that is intentionally designed to damage a victim’s computer.
Malware can be Ransomware, spyware and various computer applications. Malware can be
delivered through any link or file over email (Chen et al., 2018). When a user clicks on that
link or opens, the file malware will be executed. Malware is one of the dangerous threats for
individuals and organizations. Malware have been effecting computers since the 1970s.
Malware can affect a computer in many ways. By using malware, hackers are becoming more
sophisticated to perform their job.
Discussion
How do you determine the type and location of malware present on the computer or
device?
There are many warning signs a computer or any device can shows when they are
infected with the malware. But a person needs to perform a few steps to detect the malware
so that they can take actions quickly (Damodaran et al., 2017). Malware or malicious
applications are specifically developed to infect computers or other devices. Malware can be
presented in computer in many forms such as viruses, worms, Ransomware, Trojan horses,
spyware and adware. Every malware is developed to exploit the security and safety of any
devices and steal user data. Malware is one of the best weapons for cybercriminals. The
malware allows cybercriminals to steal personal information.
Sometimes, the presence of malicious software is very obvious. Sometimes a lot of
people install many applications that contain malware, and they do not have any idea about
malware until their computer starts acting abnormally (Chen et al., 2018). By knowing the
symptoms of this malware can help to determine the malware and help to fix this issue. A
user can notice many changes such as a various advertisement or unexpected pop-up

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windows even a user does not surf the internet. A user can see many changes in their browser
behaviours at the homepage, and browsers take a long time to open up. Sometimes lack of
storage capacity can be noticeable. When computer applications are run slowly and takes a
long time to open it cloud mean that the computer is infected with the viruses. Due to a slow
computer, a person can suffer from frustration. Slowing down a computer is one of the main
activity of malware viruses.
A user can notice many ads are pop-up at a time. Sometimes, these ads contain inappropriate
content. The unexpected appearing of advertisement is a sign of malware infection (Gandotra,
Bansal& Sofat, 2014). This type of malware is known as spyware. And this malware
designed to steal user information. When a user feels their computer runs on low memory due
to the high number of the application. Due to malware infection, many application can run on
the background at a time (Jose & Salim, 2019). This makes the computer slow. In this
scenario, then the issue is it not only shows advertisement, but it is very hard to remove, and
its effect on internet browsing. This type of malware sometimes contains other dangerous
viruses.
Sometimes a user can face a crash problem when they are surfing the internet or
performing their regular task. Two things can be causing this problem first, hardware and
software compatibility issue or it can be a malware issue.
If a user is receiving a message like “running out of disk space”, it means no free space are
available at drive C (Pascanu et al., 2015). Sometimes, this problem occurs for malware
infection. Due to malware infection, a user can feel unusual high network traffic. If the
homepage has changed automatically, it means that a computer or any device is infected with
the malware. It can happen when a user visits a malicious website or click on the suspicious
link. After clicking on the link, few software can be installed automatically.

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Sometimes a user notice few messages like “protection is disabled”. There are two reasons
for this problem. User’s antivirus can be out of the update, or their pc can be infected with the
malware if a person got fake messages from social media or email (Raff et al., 2018).
Malware spreading is an advanced program that can use Facebook messenger and ticks every
user by clicking on their provided link. This malware can send fake messages from one
account or many Facebook accounts.
If a user found unknown or unfamiliar software icon at their home screen, it can be due to
malware infection. Due to this malware, one pops-up inform of user homepage with an error
message. Sometimes users unable to open the control panel of their computer (Ranveer &
Hiray, 2015). If a user faces this issue, it means that their computer is infected with the
malware. By using flash player can harmful sometimes. Flash player has many
vulnerabilities.
In your opinion, do you think that vulnerabilities can be minimized in the future? Why or
why not?
Vulnerabilities can be reduced in the future. To reducing Vulnerabilities in the future,
finding and removing malware is necessary. Several malware programs start as a worm or
Trojan. Many advanced and complex programs start with this way. A user needs to find the
root to prevent this attack (Shijo & Salim, 2015). A user can use a few programs like
Microsoft’s process explorer, and Microsoft’s autoruns if malware is in stealth phase, a user
to remove it from the root. A user can boot the computer in safe mode and remove the stealth
component.
An antivirus plays a big role in this scenario. Using antivirus are increasing day by
day. A robust antivirus can remove the malware from the victim’s computer or device (Sun et
al., 2016). Apart from an antivirus, IDS or IPS technologies can spot various attacks. Every

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user needs to improve its malware defence strategies to prevent this problem. To help every
user, many vendors have created several software to detect vulnerabilities in the system
automatically.
Every user can avoid malware attack in the future by paying close attention. Every
user always makes sure that their operating system, antivirus, browser, and other plugins
must be up to date. Frequently can eliminate malware from the device. Keeping the operating
system up to date is the most crucial step for any user (Sun et al., 2016). As malware getting
stronger, every operating system providers increasing their security. With the help of system
update vulnerabilities can be minimized in the future. Sometimes reinstalling operating
system can clean the entire computer. Every computer user must use a robust computer
antivirus to prevent malware infection.
Conclusion
Computer malware is very dangerous programs that can be devastating for many
individuals and companies. After completion of this essay, every reader should be able to
have basic idea of the following: definitions of malware viruses and how they can get into the
computers, how to determine malware types and their locations, how it can be avoided, how a
person can get rid of malware virus and vulnerabilities can be minimized in the future or not.

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Reference:
Chen, Y., Jin, B., Yu, D., & Chen, J. (2018, September). Malware Variants Detection Using
Behavior Destructive Features. In 2018 IEEE Symposium on Privacy-Aware
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Damodaran, A., Di Troia, F., Visaggio, C. A., Austin, T. H., & Stamp, M. (2017). A
comparison of static, dynamic, and hybrid analysis for malware detection. Journal of
Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques, 13(1), 1-12.
Gandotra, E., Bansal, D., & Sofat, S. (2014). Malware analysis and classification: A
survey. Journal of Information Security, 2014.
Jose, R. R., & Salim, A. (2019, August). Integrated Static Analysis for Malware Variants
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detection. Procedia Computer Science, 46, 804-811.

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Sun, M., Li, X., Lui, J. C., Ma, R. T., & Liang, Z. (2016). Monet: a user-oriented behavior-
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