Introduction to malware - SPECTRO

After this short course, you will have an understanding of the evolvement and prevention of malware. You will become knowledgeable of different types of malware and will understand the mechanisms different pieces of malware use to infect computers. 

Course content

The covered topics include historical development of malware, different types of malware, and some infection and hiding strategies used by malware. The first modue will be an introduction to malware including its history, purpose, naming conventions and potential damage caused by it. In the second module, we will take a closer look at the different types of malware. In the third module, we will study the Windows Portable Executable file format as a target of malware infections:

Module 1: Malware basics

• History of malware
• Purpose of malware
• Naming conventions for malware
• Damage caused by malware

Module 2: Malware types and trends

• Malware types 1: trojans, rootkits, backdoors
• Malware types 2: worms, bots, spyware and adware
• Ransomware
• Macro malware
• Mobile malware

Module 3: File viruses in the Windows PE environment

• File virus types
• File virus hiding methods

After each module, there is a quiz. You may take the quizzes as many times as necessary to reach the full score.

About SPECTRO 

This course is delivered by SPECTRO. SPECTRO is a consortium consisting of 12 higher education institutions from 7 different countries, 2 innovative SMEs, and one leading research center in Information Systems and EIT Digital. SPECTRO is co-funded by the European Union’s Digital Europe Programme.