Challenges And Solutions Of Malware Attacks For IT Users: An Essay.

Detection of Malware

Question:

Discuss about the Malware Cyber Attack.

Malware cyber-attack is popular among IT users for its vulnerable impacts on systems, databases and networks. For last many years, various cases of malware attack has encountered in IT industry. Not only the past experiences but also the present experiences of malware are vulnerable. It is a big challenge for IT developers to control malware attacks. Malware is a malicious software attack and it refers to a program that is created deliberately to access data from databases and networks in unauthorized way. Malware has different types such as virus, spyware, Trojan horses, backdoor etc. Once this malicious software enters into your system or database, it can damage whole data stored into your system. There are various essential points about malware that we will discuss here in this report such as challenges of malware, its problems, and impact on IT users and its relevant technologies to get rid of malware attack (Bull, 2017).

The main challenges that are encountered by IT users in case of malware attack are detection of malware, lack of knowledge about usage of appropriate technologies such as encryption, backup software and others (Symantec.com, 2017).  

Detection of Malware

Before resolving issue of malware, it is necessary to detect malware into system and database by using virus detecting tools. But it is not easy to detect location of malware. For doing this developers should have proper knowledge that where malware can be located into system. But due to lack of knowledge and experience of security professionals in this field, detection gets delay. It is big challenge for IT developers to handle this problem.

Lack of usage of appropriate Technologies

Most of security professionals are found in field of network security and privacy rather than hardware/software security. Due to this, relevant technologies that will be helpful to control malware attacks, are not implemented properly by developers and it causes lack of security and privacy and it becomes easier for hackers to insert malicious script into system or network.

Besides above discussed challenges of malware, there are some problems that are faced by users who have encountered malware attack on their databases and systems.

1. The first major problem is related to failure of hardware. Trojan virus is type of malware and once it enters into system, puts its influence on open and close function of CD/DVD tray. Besides this, it can spread into root files and folders easily and in quick way.
2. Data loss and data theft is also a big problem of malware attack. Malicious program is injected into system by hackers and once this program executes it puts impact on operating system and cause files damage. This loss is difficult to recover if there no backup has taken previously by owner of system (Heimdal Security Blog, 2017).

The above discussed challenges and issues of malware can be managed or controlled with some relevant technologies. According to analysis, we found following relevant technologies for managing malware attack (Securelist.com, 2017).

1. The security and privacy of system need to maintain by installing anti-virus software such as Kaspersky, Avast etc. This solution facilitates user to detect and remove malware from system.
2. Firewall is an in-built software solution that is located into operating system. It should be in on mode so that it can help to detect unknown or vulnerable entity into system and can alert user. Firewall has capability to restrict entry of harmful data entity. Therefore, this technique must be used by users and developers end to get rid of problem of malware.
3. Use of cryptography is also an effective way to get rid of problem of malware or other virus attacks (Cooney, & World, 2017).

The applications areas of above discussed relevant technologies to control malware attacks, are wide. All those business organizations or users who are using computer systems, internet and other IT applications, they should use these technologies to maintain high level security and privacy of data.

The vague areas of malware can be discussed in form of queries of people about this harmful virus attack that are not cleared to them.

Question 1: Can security packages and firewalls cause problem?

Answer: The security packages and firewalls are helpful for every computer user to keep security and privacy of system. But there some confusions that are found at their levels and due to this, in some situations where users do not have knowledge, there software packages and firewalls can cause problems (Reilly, 2017).

Issues of Malware discussed in Forum

Lack of Usage of Appropriate Technologies

The forum that we have selected for this report has discussed some important malware issues that are listed as below:

• The main issue is easy to access personal and credit card information of users from a system of an organization by installing malware script into it. This script fetches data from system and sends it to hackers.
• Another malware related issue is that administration control can be released by hackers. After inserting malware into administrator’s system, confidential information like password, usernames etc. can be collected by hackers without in knowledge of administrator.

Due to these issues that are not easy to recover, IT users considered malware a most dangerous cyber-attack. The provided information is useful but in this forum I would like to add more essential information about malware issue and that malware also have potential to denial access of service of server by computers that are connected with it. It is called Denial of Service attack and it is implemented by using different types of malware such as Trojan, Spyware etc.

The above discussed challenges, problems and issues of malware are so important to come in knowledge of IT users. These points are clearly defined in forum, but there is an important issue that is not addressed in this forum and that issue is boot file of computer can be corrupted by malware and it will result in damage of stored information into hard disk of system. That is why, periodic scan should be implemented of whole system to detect malware and so that quick action can be taken to remove it from system.

As we have already discussed that impact of malware is so harmful for both users and developers. Here we will discuss some vulnerable impacts of malware of real life of users.

1. The chances of data breaches increased because malware has already affected boot section of user’s system.
2. Network intrusion becomes possible for hackers by installing malware and it directly puts impact on network algorithms.
3. Cryptography violation becomes easier for hackers and it becomes difficult for users to keep data hide properly.
4. Whole database can be corrupted by injecting a small malware script (Magento, 2017).

From above discussion we learnt about vulnerability of malware, its major challenges and common issues that are not properly handled at developers end. The protection of malware can get properly by users if both at developers and users level protection techniques will be used. It is commonly seen that users do not care for their systems and do not security tools like anti-virus, monitoring or scanning tools etc. Due to this problem of malware occurs frequently and hackers take advantage of this weak point of users. On other side, there is need to enhance contribution of developers in field of hardware and software security, so that appropriate technologies can be used to handle malware or other cyber-attacks.

Conclusion

After this whole discussion we can say that the prevention of systems, databases and networks is necessary from malware and other virus attacks. But to achieve this above discussed efforts are required to do and relevant technologies must be used to control malware attack. This will be an effective way to get rid of problem of virus attacks.

References

Bull, D. (2017). The Past, Present, and Future of Phishing and Malware | McAfee Blogs. McAfee Blogs. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/business/security-connected/past-present-and-future-of-phishing/

Cooney, M., & World, N. (2017). 10 common mobile security problems to attack. PCWorld. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://www.pcworld.com/article/2010278/10-common-mobile-security-problems-to-attack.html

Heimdal Security Blog. (2017). 10 Warning Signs that Your Computer is Malware-Infected [Updated]. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/warning-signs-operating-system-infected-malware/

Magento.(2017). Important New Malware Issue | Magento. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://magento.com/security/news/important-new-malware-issue

Reilly, A. (2017). The Challenges in Defending Against Malware - Smallbiztechnology.com. SmallBizTechnology. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2011/09/the-challenges-in-defending-against-malware.html/#.WPdSJGclHIU

Symantec.com. (2017). Malware Infection Vectors: Past, Present, and Future | Symantec Connect. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/malware-infection-vectors-past-present-and-future

Ask-leo.com. (2017). Viruses and Malware. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://ask-leo.com/viruses_and_malware.html

Securelist.com. (2017). Damage caused by malware – Securelist – Information about Viruses, Hackers and Spam. Retrieved 13 May 2017, from https://securelist.com/threats/damage-caused-by-malware/