The term “malware” is derived from malicious software or malicious code. It’s a crafted program that cybercriminals insert into your system to secretly compromise your data, applications, or operating system—and sometimes your entire network or your whole tech stack. It’s one of the most serious threats to your system and can do widespread damage.
Malware is a pretty broad term given to any kind of program or file that is meant to harm devices, networks, and/or servers. As such, there are many kinds of malware including viruses, trojan horses, phishing attempts, ransomware, adware, spyware, keylogger programs, and more.
In recent years, reports of malware as a whole were down 43%, but internet of things (IoT) devices experienced a 66% total increase, with an astonishing 56.9 million malware attacks against IoT devices in 2020. What’s more, there were 268,000 new types of malware detected in 2020, up 74% from the previous year.
Malware continues to grow in scope and power, and organizations need to take precautionary steps to detect malware before it does any damage to their system.