Malware

By: Aroha Upreti
Grade 10,
Sir Wilfred Laurier Secondary School,
Ottawa, Ontario Canada

(A research base article by a promising high school student)

The word ‘malware’ is a portmanteau for malicious software and is used to describe a software that is harmful to a computer or network. Malware is created with malicious intent to steal important files, information, or money. A program that causes harm but was created without any bad intent is generally classified as a software bug as it has some glitches/bugs. In our age of technology, the complexity of malware programs increase, making our computers more and more prone to being harmed. Malware such as ransomware, viruses, and spyware are notorious for being some of the worst malware on the internet.

A very popular type of malware is the computer virus, a program that replicates itself by forcing its own code into a computer system, making most of the files infected, and changing the computer’s programming. Most viruses have malicious intent like destroying files or stealing information, but in some cases viruses are used to see if there are any cybersecurity issues within the computer. Viruses are spread when infected files are transferred to another system or network. They may lay dormant until it gets triggered by an event, so the virus isn’t caught by an antivirus program. The theory of a computer virus was first thought of back in the 1940’s, but the first case of a computer virus was The Creeper virus made in 1971, by Bob Thomas from BBN Technologies. It was an experimental virus that filled up all space inside the hard drive, causing the computer to crash, and spamming the message ‘I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!’ An infamous incident of a virus was in 2000 with the virus ‘iloveyou’, a Philippines virus that infected over 50 million computer systems in 10 days. It was spread using emails, and was finally stopped when email companies shut down their servers temporarily.

Spyware is a malware that gets to your computer through infected emails, programs, or websites and spies on you, hence the name spyware. This malware looks through your files to find personal data, looks at your search history for passwords and usernames, steals credit card information, and browsing habits. Your information can be sold to companies, advertisers, and others. Even your personal identity can be stolen. The first case of spyware can be seen in late 2000 when toy company Mattel used their educational program “Reader Rabbit” to receive data for marketing purposes. A popular incident of spyware was first reported in 2007 from a luxury asian hotel; the spyware is now known as DarkHotel. Once connected to the Wi-Fi, a prompt would pop up asking to download software claiming to be legit. Your name, email, and password would be asked for, and the software downloaded gives access to all of your data. This spyware was targeted to rich businessmen because of money.

Ransomware is a type of malware that holds your personal files ‘hostage’ and locks them so you cannot access them. To unlock the locked files, you need to pay for a key made by the company/person. It originates from AIDS researcher Joseph Popp back in 1989 when he handed out 20 000 floppy disks to other AIDS researchers in over 90 countries. According to Joseph, each floppy disk had an application that measured the risk of a person contracting AIDS, using a questionnaire. Unknowingly to others, Joseph had put a malware on each floppy disk, now known as the digital AIDS virus. After the computer was turned on 90 times, it would activate. All the names of the files would be encrypted, and a pop up would appear asking for money to pay the “software lease.” The first ransomware was targeted at healthcare, which is usually the main target for other ransomware to this day. One major incident of ransomware happened here in Ottawa at the Ottawa Hospital back in 2016. Over 9,800 devices were affected and files were locked, but backups were saved, and the infected devices were wiped.

Now that you’ve seen the drastic toll that malware takes on your computer, here are some steps on how to protect yourself and your computer:

When looking through your inbox, be careful on which emails you open; only open emails from people/companies you know, and don’t open unknown links.
If a website tells you your computer has a virus or is in danger and it tells you to pay, do not follow their instructions, close the tab.
Don’t share your password with anyone and make your passwords more complex (with numbers, symbols, capitals, etc.)
Install an antivirus, an example is Norton antivirus.
Only open trusted sites
Get an ad blocker on your browser

If you follow all of these steps and stay conscious, you’ll be fine. Stay safe on the internet!

(A research base article by a promising high school student)