Malicious

Malicious refers to any action or behavior that is intended to cause harm, damage, or disruption. This term is often used in the context of cybersecurity, where it describes software or activities that are designed to damage or infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent.

Overview

The term "malicious" is derived from the Latin word "malus", which means "bad" or "evil". In the context of cybersecurity, malicious activities can include the creation and distribution of malware, phishing attempts, denial-of-service attacks, and other forms of cybercrime.

Malware

Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network. Malware can take the form of viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, and more. These malicious programs can steal, delete, or encrypt data, monitor the user's activity without their knowledge, or hijack core computing functions.

Phishing

Phishing is a type of cyber attack that uses email or malicious websites to infect your machine with malware or collect your sensitive information. Phishing emails often appear as though they’ve been sent from a legitimate organization or known individual, thereby deceiving the recipient into clicking on a malicious link or downloading an infected attachment.

Denial-of-service attacks

A Denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet.

Cybercrime

Cybercrime refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target of the crime. Types of cybercrime may include, but are not limited to, theft of personal data, copyright infringement, child pornography, and child grooming.

See also

• Computer security
• Information security
• Internet security