The Difference in Hacking, Malware, And Ransomware
Advances in technology have been a great help to humans and the community. With technology, communication has improved dramatically over the years. People can enjoy real-time communication with anyone in the world. It also helped businesses enjoy less hassles when it comes to recording and storing their data. With more powerful machines, statistics computation is becoming a breeze. The improved machines and the addition of things they can do have helped industries – banking, retail stores, travel agencies, etc. – improve their services. With modern technology, even more industries such as startups, cloud computing, and more have emerged, and partnering with IT support has become very rampant with their evident expertise in technology. In past decades, technology seeped even deeper in our lives.
People are doing a lot of things on their devices: banking, online shopping, ticket reservations, etc. In the wake of these functionalities that are increasingly available online, it is not surprising that online threats and security breaches have also grown. Computers being used by big companies, as well as the personal computers, are being exploited on a daily basis. These attacks, which is known as cybercrimes, are exploiting victims who do not care or are ignorant about cybersecurity and computer protection. Even though a lot of security measures are available for use and are updated every day, threats are also evolving and being made by a lot of hackers every day. Antivirus and antimalware software can just protect your computer against the threats that are saved on their database. However, having a managed security against cyber attacks is better than having none.
There are three terms that are almost associated with cyberattacks these days: hacking, malware, and ransomware. A lot of people who are using computers on a daily basis for entertainment, work, or studying, will have a rough idea about these terms and how important they are in protecting the computer system. In this article, these terms will be defined, with their importance within cyber security explained.
HACKING
When you hear the word “hacking” it is likely that you’ll imagine someone wearing a hoodie and typing very fast in front of a computer monitor. This hacker will take input a password, press enter, and bam! He got all the money from a bank. This visualization of hacking is partly true. Hacking, according to Techopedia, is the unauthorized intrusion into a computer or a network. In order to call the access an act of hacking, the hacker must have altered how the system or the security features of a computer system works. So even if a hacker just happened to change your system time, it can still be considered as hacking.
MALWARE
Malware, or malicious software, on the other hand, is a type of software that is meant to bring harm to a computer system. The things which you call viruses and worms, they are all malware. Unfortunately, there’s a lot different kind of malware existing today and most of them are found on the internet. The other kinds of malware are Trojans, spyware, rootkits, and adware in which there only purpose in life is to steal or modify data like your documents, pictures, and other files. Using malware is a type of hacking. Just think of it as a very small package being slipped in the cracks of your door and will explode once you picked it up.
RANSOMWARE
Last but not the list is the Ransomware. Ransomware is relatively new, but it already caused a lot of damage in businesses and personally. A Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the documents and files of the PC infected. The ransomer will threaten the PC user that he’ll delete the important files if a certain ransom is not paid. This type of malware has been destroyed because of the damages did with businesses. Examples of a Ransomware are the “WannaCry Worm” and the “CryptoLocker”. These Ransomware were reported to have caused millions of dollars of damage before being taken down by the authorities. Just think of it as a very small package slipped through the cracks of your door and threatens to destroy your house if you don’t pay.
There is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cyber attacks. A lot of dangerous exploitations are still being made every day. It is a good idea to have security measures in order to defend PC networks from known threats.