Malware Types

1-Adware:

Adware is generally software that displays advertisements. Some advertisers may covertly install adware on your system and generate a stream of unsolicited advertisements that can clutter your desktop and affect your productivity. The advertisements may also contain pornographic or other material that you might find inappropriate. The extra processing required to track you or to display advertisements can tax your computer and hurt your system performance.

2-Bundler:

Is a software program that installs adware on your computer either with your permission or without. Most of the software classified as a bundler requires that the adware program(s) be installed in order for the actual software to complete installation or run. In addition in most cases if the adware is removed the software will seize to function as well.

3-AOL Exploit:

Any password stealer, exploit, DoS attack, or ICQ hack aimed at users of AOL. ICQ is an instant messenger service from mirabilis.com, now AOL. ICQ is a favorite service among hackers, and ICQ features are built into many Trojans (such as stealing user's passwords, UINs, or notifying the hacker). Users of ICQ are warned ""By using the ICQ service and software… you may be subject to various risks, including… Spoofing, eavesdropping, sniffing, spamming, breaking passwords, harassment, fraud, forgery, 'imposturing', electronic trespassing, tampering, hacking, nuking, system contamination including without limitation use of viruses, worms and Trojan horses causing unauthorized, damaging or harmful access and/or retrieval of information and data on your computer and other forms of activity that may even be considered unlawful.""

4-AV Killer:

Any hacker tool intended to disable a user's anti-virus software to help elude detection. Some will also disable personal firewalls.

5-backdoor:

Is a means of access to a computer program that bypasses any computer security mechanisms. Computer attackers often use backdoors as part of an exploit or Trojan to gain access to a user's computer. In some cases, a worm is designed to take advantage of a backdoor created by an earlier attack.

6-Binder:

A tool that combines two or more files into a single file, usually for the purpose of hiding one of them. A binder compiles the list of files that you select into one host file, which you can rename. A host file is a simple custom compiled program that will decompress and launch the source programs. When you start the host, the embedded files in it are automatically decompressed and launched. When a Trojan is bound with Notepad, for instance, the result will appear to be Notepad, and appear to run like Notepad, but the Trojan will also be run.

7-Browser Helper Object: (BHO):

A component that Internet Explorer will load whenever it starts, shares IE's memory context, can perform any action on the available windows and modules. A BHO can detect events; create windows to display additional information on a viewed page, monitor messages and actions. Microsoft calls it "a spy we send to infiltrate the browser's land." BHOs are not stopped by personal firewalls, because they are seen by the firewall as your browser itself. Some exploits of this technology search all pages you view in IE and replace banner advertisements with other ads. Some monitor and report on your actions. Some change your home page.

8-Browser Hijacker:

Browser hijackers are malicious programs that change a user's web browser settings, usually altering designated default start and search pages. In addition a browser hijacker can modify nearly every aspect of a web browser including adding bookmarks, and redirecting search traffic to alternative sites.

9-Browser Plug-in:

A browser plug-in is an application that can be installed within a user's web browser. Plug-ins can come in the form of a toolbar that is included in your web browser or a search or navigation feature to extra task buttons on the browser. Although most plug-ins are designed to perform necessary functions, many plug-ins are harmful to you computer because they have complete access to your web browser and can modify, spy and redirect any task you perform.

10-Commercial Key Logger:

A commercial key logger is a program that is installed by a user of a computer to explicitly monitor the activity of other users. These types of program can be installed using stealth tactics to hide themselves from other users. In addition these programs can be purchased from commercial organizations for this use.

11-Commercial RAT:

Any commercial product that is normally used for remote administration, but which might be exploited to do this without user consent or awareness.

12-Cracking Misc:

Any document and/or tool that provides guidance on how to remove copy protection.

13-Cracking Tool:

Any software designed to modify other software for the purpose of removing usage restrictions. An example is a 'patcher' or 'patch generator', that will replace bytes at specified locations in a file, rendering it a licensed version. A music file ripper is a program that enables the user to digitally copy songs from a CD into many different formats such as MP3, WAV, or AIFC.

14-DDoS:

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one that pits many machines against a single victim. An example is the attacks of February 2000 against some of the biggest websites. Even though these websites have a theoretical bandwidth of a gigabit/second, distributing many agents throughout the Internet flooding them with traffic can bring them down. The Internet is defenseless against these attacks. The best defense is for users everywhere to run our program, and remove DDoS clients when they are found, so that their machines are not used as attack tools. Another approach is for ISPs to do ""egress filtering"": prevent packets from going outbound that do not originate from IP addresses assigned to the ISP. This cuts down on the problem of spoofed IP addresses.

15-Dialer:

A dialer is software that dials a phone number using your computer's modem. Most dialer programs connect to toll numbers without user awareness or permission to incur phone charges on the user's phone bill.

16-DoS:

An exploit whose purpose is to deny somebody the use of the service: namely to crash or hang a program or the entire system. Examples of DoS attacks include flooding the victim with more traffic than can be handled; flooding a service (like IRC) with more events than it can handle bomb; crashing a TCP/IP stack by sending corrupt packets; crashing a service by interacting with it in an unexpected way; or hanging a system by causing it to go into an infinite loop. For example, the Ping of Death exploit crashed machines by sending illegally fragmented packets at a victim. A common word for DoS is ""nuke"", which was first popularized by the WinNuke program.

17-Downloader:

A program designed to retrieve and install additional files, when run. Most will be configured to retrieve from a designated web or FTP site.

18-Dropper:

In viruses and Trojans, the dropper is the part of the program that installs the hostile code onto the system.

19- E-Mail Flooder:

An ICQ exploit is a Trojan program that installs taking advantage of a user's ICQ software. This exploit can steel ICQ passwords or modify any ICQ settings.

20-Enabler:

While not spyware, it provides functionality that spyware products have been known to exploit. Normally, these applications are okay to have running on your machine, as they are only dangerous if a Spyware application is also installed on your machine and exploiting it. However if you did not install this, or know of a legitimate application that did, you may consider quarantining or removing it.

21-Encryption Tool:

Any software that can be used to scramble documents, software, or systems so that only those possessing a valid key are able to unscramble it. Encryption tools are used to secure information; sometimes unauthorized use of encryption tools in an organization is a cause for concern.

22-Exploit:

A way of breaking into a system. An exploit takes advantage of a weakness in a system in order to hack it. Exploits are the root of the hacker culture. Hackers gain fame by discovering an exploit. Others gain fame by writing scripts for it. Legions of script-kiddies apply the exploit to millions of systems, whether it makes sense or not. Since people make the same mistakes over-and-over, exploits for very different systems start to look very much like each other. Most exploits can be classified under major categories: buffer overflow, directory climbing, defaults, Denial of Service.

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