What is Malware ???

Malware - short for malicious software - is an umbrella term that refers to any software program deliberately created to perform an unauthorized and often harmful action. Viruses, backdoors, keyloggers, password stealers and other Trojan horse programs, Word and Excel macro viruses, boot sector viruses, script viruses (batch, windows shell, java, etc.) and Trojans, crimeware, spyware and adware are but a few examples of what is considered malware.

It was once sufficient to call something a 'virus' or 'Trojan horse', but infection methods and vectors evolved and the terms virus and Trojan no longer provided a satisfactory definition for all the types of rogue programs that exist.