Windows® 7 Bible

Chapter 8. Conquering Malicious Software

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding malware

Beating spyware with Windows Defender

Killing and preventing viruses

De-worming with the Malicious Software Removal Tool

Malicious software (also called malware) is any software program that's intentionally designed to cause your computer harm or invade your privacy. These are not programs you purchase, or programs from reputable software manufacturers such as Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, and others. They generally don't have icons, and you don't have to run them yourself. Rather, they're tiny programs that are hidden inside your system and do their dirty work without your knowing it.

As you learn in this chapter, several forms of malware exist including viruses, worms, spyware, and adware. As you also discover in this chapter, you can take actions to prevent your computer from getting malware. And when it's too late for that, you can take steps to get rid of malware. This chapter starts with a discussion of the most prevalent form of malware today, spyware.

Types of Malware

Malicious software comes in many forms. All forms have certain things in common, though. For one, they're invisible — you don't even know they're there. For another, they all do something bad, something you don't really want happening on your computer. Third, they're all written by human programmers to intentionally do these bad things. The differences have to do with how they spread and what they do after they're on your computer. I tell you ...