How to Keep Malware Off Your Device

Our modern society doesn’t go a single day without using a device and the internet. The internet has revolutionised the way that our world operates making everything much faster, smoother, and more convenient than ever before. Thanks to the internet, you can now work remotely from anywhere in the world, hop onto a video call with your friends and family overseas, or keep up with all the latest news and updates using social media. 

 

Technology has also given us incredibly powerful devices such as smartphones, laptops, and tablets. These devices have become extraordinarily powerful over the years. So much so that our smartphones are now more powerful than the computers that NASA used to send astronauts to the moon. We often take these devices for granted and forget how revolutionary they genuinely are. 

 

However, as much as the internet and personal devices have brought much good to the world, there’s also a dark side to these developments. Cybercrime is the latest threat that we need to deal with in our modern society, and it can be an incredibly devastating threat if you don’t take it seriously either. One of the biggest threats that our devices face is malicious software. You must learn the basics of malicious software and how to keep your devices safe and secure from this serious threat. Keep reading to get all the details. 

 

What is Malware

 

Malware is short for malicious software. As the name suggests, malware is a type of software that is designed to cause harm to your devices. Malware can manifest in many different ways, which makes it quite a broad topic to cover. However, there are three important types of malware that you need to know about — viruses, spyware, and ransomware. These are the three most common and dangerous types of malware, and we’ll quickly cover them below. 

 

Viruses - Viruses are the most common type of malware that you might run into. We’ve all heard of viruses, but just like “malware”, the term “virus” is extremely broad. That's because there are hundreds of different types of viruses out there that can cause serious damage to your devices. 

 

Unlike their biological counterparts, computer viruses are man-made and each one is designed with its purpose and goal in mind. Some viruses exist simply to cause the user frustration with hundreds of pop-up ads. However, other viruses can be more dangerous, corrupting files, deleting data, and some of them can even destroy your device’s entire operating system. 

 

Spyware - Spyware is another dangerous type of malware that you need to be aware of. When spyware is installed on a device, a cybercriminal can monitor the websites that you regularly visit. This allows them to track your online activity and create more effective phishing attacks that are more difficult to spot — we’ll cover phishing shortly. 

 

Ransomware - Ransomware is the most dangerous and devastating form of malware that you could come across. Malware is designed to encrypt important files and accounts on your devices. When these items are encrypted they become impossible to access, move, or edit. Ransomware is designed to go after your most important items such as your email or banking accounts, or even your sensitive business documents. 

 

The only way to get the encryption removed is to pay a ransom fee. The ransom fee can range from a few thousand dollars to millions for businesses.  Even if you pay the ransom fee, it’s up to the cybercriminals to remove the encryption. 

 

How Does Malware Get Onto Your Device

 

The most common method that cybercriminals use to install malware on your device is phishing. Phishing is when a hacker attempts to get a victim to click on an illegitimate link or attachment that has been sent to them in an email, text message, or even through a direct message on social media.

 

Phishing is extremely dangerous and it has become even more difficult to detect in recent years. Hackers are using social engineering to make their phishing scams much more convincing and difficult to spot. Social engineering is when a cybercriminal poses as a person or company that you might know and trust — this is done to put you at ease and remove the suspicion of a potential phishing scam.

 

For example, you might receive an email that informs you that you need to update your billing information on Netflix or risk having your account suspended (phishing scams will always have a sense of urgency attached to them). The email will urge you to follow a link that takes you straight to the billing page. However, once the victim clicks on the link, malware will be installed on their device. These emails are difficult to spot because the hackers will use the same fonts, graphics, and colors as you would find on an actual Netflix email, making it look completely legitimate.

 

The problem is that illegitimate links like the ones often used in emails are being hidden extremely well these days. They can be hidden as images on websites, and even links in social media posts.

 

Always Use Antivirus Software

 

If you want to keep malware off of your devices for good, antivirus software is essential. Antivirus software is designed to scan your device for any threats and inform you when it has detected any malware. The software does this through an extensive library of known malware codes and applications, which allows it to recognize and flag any malware on your device.

 

Once it has detected the malware, it will inform you that your device is at risk. The software can then quarantine your device to stop the malware from spreading and get to work on removing the malware and securing your device. If you’re using premium antivirus software you get the benefit of a safety net too. Expensive antivirus software can help you to detect a phishing scam or illegitimate link early on, which will prevent malware from making its way onto your device in the first place. Premium antivirus software also has a dedicated team of developers who are constantly updating the library of known malware with the latest threats — that way your software is always equipped to detect and remove the latest malware.