Infect and encrypt all of the files on your computer. For example, malware known as Cryptolocker is used by cyber criminals to These goals can include stealing confidential data, harvesting logins and passwords, sending spam emails, launching denial of service attacks, extortion or identity theft. Malware is no longer created by just curious hobbyists or amateur hackers, but by sophisticated cyber criminals to help them achieve specific goals.
In fact, the prevalence of malicious software infecting mobile devices is steadily growing.
While Windows is widely used, and thus a big target, malware can infect any computing device, including smartphones and tablets. Malware has been misconceived to be a problem only for Windows computers. Once installed, these attackers can potentially gain total control of them.
The end goal of most cyber criminals is to install malware on your computers or mobile devices. The term is a combination of the words MALicious and softWARE. Malware is a software or computer program used to perform these malicious actions. Every day, companies loose sensitive data because of various security breaches they encounter. The reality today is that every industry and organisation faces zero-day attack. These facts and figures show that there is a very serious concern in todays network security and the zero day attacks are among the top security concerns that the modern enterprises face. Large tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and others are also being targeted with same zero-day Java vulnerability that attacks multiple customers. According to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report of 2014, there is 91% increase in targeted attacks campaigns in 2013, 62% increase in the number of security breaches and 23 zero-day vulnerabilities were discovered. Zero-day attacks have dominated the headlines over the years for political, social and monetary gains. The proliferation of newly developed technologies which are being adopted by different organisations for their changing business needs, are taken advantage of by malicious or sneaky sources that lie in wait to exploit vulnerabilities in them. Today, the internet has become a persistent threat environment for various types of organisations.
Keywords -Machine learning, Malware, Zero-day attacks. Finally, machine learning techniques for efficient and effective detection of malware are also discussed. This paper discusses the different types of malwares that are used for attacks as well as some of the techniques for combating zero- day attacks. The frightening issue is that software vendors are not aware of the vulnerability available in the software and as such no warning is given before the attackers strike. Malwares are used to infect computer systems thereby causing malicious intent. I Onyejegbu, Laeticia N.ĭepartment of Computer Science, Rivers State University, Nigeriaĭepartment of Computer Science, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.Ībstract- Zero-day attacks have become a very important security issue that should not be overlooked. Review of Malware and Techniques for Combating Zero Day AttacksĮmmah, Victor Thomas Ejiofor, C.