Type

Malware names usually indicate the threat category. Malware are grouped into categories based on the propagation and system infection methods that they exhibit.

Family

Malware that exhibit similar attributes and behavior are grouped into families. Security vendors usually adapt the name given to a malware family by the entity that first discovered it. However, there are times that the same family is given different names when multiple vendors or researchers discover it independently.

Variant

Malware writers typically create multiple variants of the same threat to avoid detection by security software. Because malware names must be unique, variants are assigned letters that indicate the order in which they were discovered.