<p>Malware is used to describe any type of malicious software that is designed to exploit, harm or take control of a device or a network. It is of many types:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Viruses</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>spreads between devices and causes damage</li></ul>
<li><strong>Spyware</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>collects information about user and sends to attacker</li></ul>
<li><strong>Worms</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>can propagate or self-replicate without human interaction</li></ul>
<li><strong>Trojan Horse</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>disguises itself as a standard program to take control of device</li></ul>
<li><strong>Ransomware</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>encrypts your data and blackmails you, asking you to pay in cryptocurrency (mostly)</li></ul>
<li><strong>Rootkit</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>collection of malware used by cybercriminals to exploit and gain control of a computer or network</li></ul>
<li><strong>Backdoor</strong><ulclass="nested-list"><li>malware backdoors (not non-malware backdoors) allow remote control of a website or computer</li></ul>
</ul>
<p>To stay safe from malware, you should get a good anti-malware. <ahref="https://www.clamav.net/">ClamAV</a> is one of the few open-source anti-malware software. It is available on Linux, MacOS and of course, Windows. I believe that your anti-malware should be <astyle="color:#50fa7b"href="../free-software/">free software</a> as it is an application that scans all files on your PC and checks them against a database.</p>
<p>As for smartphones, Android has many options. One of them is the free and open-source app <ahref="https://github.com/Divested-Mobile/Hypatia">Hypatia</a>, which is available on <ahref="https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.malwarescanner/">F-Droid</a>. It has 7 different lists that will be scanned for viruses. On the other hand, iOS does not have any open-source anti-malware or antivirus applications. It does have closed-source ones, but they are not super good. You have to rely on iOS' security.</p>
