Software have become an essential part of businesses, especially for the small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) and is not only playing an important role in increasing the productivity, but also increasing the profits of the business. But, SMB owners have to be alert and aware of the threats to the software that are installed in the computer.
Software threat can be a deliberate attack and in some cases it can be significant. While, sometimes an accidental and general attack by one or more malicious programs.
There are many threats to a computer software and we will discuss the most common threats like Virus, Trojans, Spyware, Worms and Logic bombs in this article.
Virus
Virus are malicious programs that enters or attacks other programs. They may be injected deliberately into your computer/software or entered accidentally into your software program through other installations.
Virus takes over the other programs and corrupts the data. Small businesses must be aware and careful about the Virus.
Trojans
Trojan is so named after “Trojan Horse” from the history of Troy. Trojans do not enter or take over other computer program like Virus, but gives backdoor access to the hackers.
Trojans are not self-replicating. They spread deliberately by hackers to control others operating system.
The effect of the Trojan may be many times greater than Virus as they delete critical data, hangs your computer and gives unauthorized access to hackers.
Unfortunately, Trojans cannot be identified by normal users. The only way to identify is when your computer slows down or hangs up.
Spyware
Spyware is a computer program that collects information about the computer or the user of that computer and passes it to other entities for various reasons. Usually they are used to track or steal the confidential information about your business from the computer. Spyware is similar to Trojan, it cannot be identified by the user.
Worms
Worms are considered one of the serious threats to SMBs, as they have multiple computers connected in a network. As the name suggests worms crawl from one computer to other through network or e-mails, or other connectivity.
They are self-replicating. They produce many replicas of themselves that again re-produce many more worms exploiting the operating systems of the computers.
Logic bombs
Logic bomb is also called as “slag code”. Logic bomb is a computer Virus or Trojan, but they do not act on their own. They need to be triggered to make them work (explode). Logic bomb when exploded corrupts, steals or deletes information from the system.
Logic bombs can be identified by false or unwanted messages being printed on the user’s screen when exploded.
So, SMB owners should be aware of these five common threats to software. We post the counterattack techniques and security measures to be taken to prevent these threats in our next article.