Pc or laptop problems? We can help!: More From Antivirus Malware; Same Problems Just DIfferent Names

Well, we have been covering the whole antivurs malware issue for some time but we wanted to update some of the information we haev found recently. There are new names, and new looks for the nasty little malware but the problems it can cause are still the same.

For those of you that are new, here's some basic background information. Back in 2008 computer tech's began seeing an influx of complaints centered around what appeared, to the untrained eye, to be legitimate antivirus programs. This was actually cleverly disguised malware and not a true antivirus program. So what is malware and how can it affect your computer?

Malware is a term used for malicious software programs which are in fact harmful to your computer. Malware includes spyware and adware programs, such as tracking cookies, which are used to monitor your surfing habits. Other things that may be included are much more dangerous and include keyloggers to steal personal information as you type, trojan horses, worms and even viruses.

A keylogger is just that; it's a program which records each keystroke on a keyboard and then sends the information to a remote user. The informatoin gathered may be things such as bank account or credit card numbers, passwords, social security numbers, date of birth or any other sensitive information that you may enter in a form on a website. A trojan (also known as a trojan horse) can potentially destroy your system as well as install the "back door" which the keylogger uses to transmit the data collected. These are normally used for identity theft.

A virus, or worm. replicates itself and may take control of your system. These types of malware are used to create what are clled botnets which send out huge amounts of either spam of phishing emails. Viruses usually attach to other programs, while worms are self-contained. Both can cause severe damage by eating up essential system resources, which may lead to your computer to run slow or even crash. Viruses and worms commonly use shared files and items like email address books to spread to other computers.

So now that we know what malware can do, how do we get infected? Initially when the antivirus malware issue came to light when the designers began literally hacking full websites and placing the code to launch the malware directly on these websites. There were hundreds of thousands of websites that were hacked and many of them were sites that server a legal, legitmate purpose and were well known. Once it was discovered that this was happening, website owners got wise they had the code removed and strengthened their security to prevent any further infection from spreading. How this woudl work is a person online would go to one of the infected websites, open the page, and immediately upon opening the page the malware would infect their computer.

The next, and still ongoing, way of infecting computers is through online advertising. Even big name websites place ads on their web pages to make money. Those ads get rotated and alternated to generate even more revenue for the site and in that the ads are constantly changing. The hackers spreading this malware are infecting ads so when the ad comes up on a webpage, if you are visiting the website at that particular time, your computer becomes infected. The issue with this is that it's basically hit and miss. You may successfully visit the same site several times but if it is running an infected ad then eventually your computer will become infected.

So now we would like to show you soe updated images; these are what you may see once your computer has become infected. It comes with many names and many variations on the look but the infection is always the same. First, here is an updated list of names for the malware.

Antivirus 2009/2010