Malware vs viruses vs ransomware and spyware, spoofing and other weird cybersecurity terms

Weird Cybersecurity Terms

You probably hear all of these terms thrown around a lot. But what do they actually mean? What are the nuanced differences?

Well, let's dive in and see.

Malware

Malware is the overarching term for a program that intends to do something malicious or bad. This is where it gets its name: it's a combination of malicious + software.

Viruses

Viruses are a subsection of malware and refer to specific programs that also try to replicate and spread themselves.

Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds your computer or data hostage. It does this by encrypting a portion (or all) of your files unless you pay the ransom. It is pretty rare that these encryptions can be cracked. The ransomware could also act like a virus in that it tries to spread, too.

Spam and Bulk Email

Spam is an email that was not solicited by you. Bulk email is just an email that is sent out to a ton of people. This could be spam, but it could also be newsletters and things like that. Although spam filters try to differentiate the two, it can't always. Sometimes causes issues both in terms of security and in terms of blocking emails that you actually want.

Phishing

Spam email oftentimes leads to security breaches through phishing. Phishing is where a malicious person tries to get you to click a link or download an attachment that has some form of malware on it.

Spyware

Malware might not always be as obvious as ransomware, and might be something like spyware, where it is just watching and recording everything you do (including banking transactions, password collection, business transactions, etc). This can also be done through something innocuous like a Word or Excel file that has hidden code that gets by spam filters and antivirus programs.

Spoofing

Spoofing is similar to spam, but rather than someone sending some ambiguous email, they try to pretend that they are someone that they are not. This might take the form of trying to look like a coworker or client or your bank or Netflix or anything like that is sending you an email when they really are not.