Tens
of thousands of virus/malware exist, with more being created each
day. Although once most common in DOS or Windows, computer viruses
today can cause a great amount of damage by exploiting vulnerabilities
in corporate networks, email systems and websites.
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Joke program:
A
virus-like program that often manipulates the appearance of things
on a computer monitor.
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Probable virus/malware:
Suspicious
files that have some of the characteristics of virus/malware. For
details, see the
Trend Micro Virus Encyclopedia:
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Rootkit: A program (or collection of programs) that
installs and executes code on a system without end user consent
or knowledge. It uses stealth to maintain a persistent and undetectable
presence on the machine. Rootkits do not infect machines, but rather,
seek to provide an undetectable environment for malicious code to
execute. Rootkits are installed on systems via social engineering,
upon execution of malware, or simply by browsing a malicious website.
Once installed, an attacker can perform virtually any function on
the system to include remote access, eavesdropping, as well as hide
processes, files, registry keys and communication channels.
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Trojan horse:
This
type of threat often uses ports to gain access to computers or executable
programs. Trojan horse programs do not replicate but instead reside
on systems to perform malicious acts, such as opening ports for
hackers to enter. A Traditional antivirus solutions can detect and
remove viruses but not Trojans, especially those already running
on the system.
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Virus: A program that replicates. To do so, the virus
needs to attach itself to other program files and execute whenever
the host program executes, including:
