CAN YOU DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MALWARE, SPYWARE AND VIRUSES?

Could you detect if your computer has been infected with any of them? If you want to find out what they are and what their differences are, you are in the right place.

But most important of all, let's see how you can protect yourself against spyware, virus or malware.

Is having an antivirus enough to keep your computer safe? Or do you need specific tools for each of them?

What Is Malware, Spyware And Computer Virus?

Surely you know that all these names perform some "bad" action for your device. However, there are several differences between these three concepts.

To understand them better, let's first see what each of them is.

What Is Malware?

The word malware comes from malicious software or what is the same, malicious software. The function of such software is to infiltrate and / or damage your device without your consent. This is the generic term or general category that is given to all types of malicious programs that can damage your computer such as viruses, spyware, worms or Trojans.

Therefore, when we talk about malware, we are referring to all that software whose objective is to infiltrate or damage our device without consent.

It is the global term we use to indicate that our computer is infected.

There are several tools for removing malware from many different companies. Some of them are specific to a single type of malware, such as certain antivirus, although there are also more comprehensive malware removal tools that include antivirus, anti-spyware and detection of other types of malware.

What is spyware?

Spyware is a specific type of malware that infiltrates your computer to spy. They tend to be hidden in executable files such as .exe or in other programs that you are going to install, so they can be installed without user action.

Spyware is basically dedicated to spying, but it can be really dangerous depending on the information it acquires about our equipment and our activity. Some spyware is simply dedicated to monitoring our activity on the network, while others take this data and sell it to third parties.

Other types of spyware can record the keys you press while typing, therefore, they can find out your access credentials to many web pages, including email or the bank page.

They are a type of software that is quite difficult for the user to detect because it is hidden, it does not affect the operation of the device, it simply spies on all your Internet activity, your documents, your files, all your data in general, which makes it quite dangerous when be undetectable a priori.

What Is A Virus?

A virus is a type of malware designed to infect and damage or disrupt the proper functioning of the attacking device. Its name comes from the biological virus, since it enters the computer infecting a certain file and has the ability to self-replicate and infect other files.

The computer virus infects files through malicious code through the intervention of a user. This means that the user is the one who must execute the file through which the virus travels.

To do this, they usually include them in movies or music that are downloaded illegally, or they can be disguised as any program or file under a name that does not lead to suspect that it is a virus.

Generally, when a computer is infected with a virus, its operation changes one way or another.

It can slow down and cause problems when loading, it can perform strange behavior such as looping or any other unusual activity.

In short, the user usually knows when his computer has been infected by a virus, since it is displayed on the device and does not hide its presence by changing the behavior of the computer.

Main Differences Between Malware, Spyware and Viruses

Now that you've seen what each concept is, let's discuss the main differences between malware, spyware, and viruses.

To begin with, as you have already found out, malware would be the category that brings together all types of malicious programs such as spyware, viruses, worms, Trojans, etc. Therefore, if we talk about tools to remove malware, it means that it is specialized in detecting all or several different types of malicious software.

Having understood this distinction, we can proceed to see the differences between spyware and computer viruses.

First of all, spyware is a type of software that hides itself from the user, which means that the user is most likely not aware that they have been infected. On the other hand, the virus is transparent towards the user, as it changes the operation of the computer, laptop, tablet, etc., causing it to not work correctly.

Which leads us to another obvious difference, which is that spyware does not act by damaging the computer, but is limited to observing, spying on everything it contains without changing its correct operation.

For the installation of spyware, the intervention of a user is not necessarily required, since as they are hidden in other programs, they are the ones that can activate the spyware itself, while viruses do need the user to execute it. Another difference is that viruses have the ability to self-replicate and infect other files and even other computers if they share certain software or through infected flash drives. In contrast, spyware cannot spread.

Finally, we know that both are two types of malware, and each has its own security measure designed for computers: antispyware and antivirus.

However, it is common to see programs designed to detect and remove both types of malware.