 Hello today we are going to talk about malware malicious software. What is it? How do I define it? But before I define it in the way that I define it? Let's look at what Cisco comm says Cisco comm says what is malware malware short for malicious software? refers to any intrusive software developed by cyber criminals often called hackers to steal data and Damage or destroy computers or computer systems. I'm not really sure what the difference between a computer and a computer system is but Examples of common malware include viruses worms Trojan viruses spyware adware ransomware, okay? I don't like this definition and I'm going to find a little bit simpler But first before we get to my definition, let's talk about some of these so again lots of times when they talk about malware They call it viruses. They refer to all malware as viruses and there is a difference a virus is a program that copies itself either across a computer Or across networks from one computer to another on this they list spyware and adware That that that's most apps in the Google Play Store or or iPhone app store, right? So we have spyware and we have adware That they're considering malicious software and I would mostly agree with that But how would I define? Malicious software, what is malicious? So why is how is it being malicious anything is what I consider malicious you may not consider malicious? So my definition of malicious software breaks down into two things, right? You as the owner of a device, which is important I'll get to that back to that in a moment as the owner of device if a piece of software Does something you don't want it to do or it prevents you from doing something I would call that malicious software and again what you consider malicious may be different than me So for example, let's say I write a script That every day it runs and it looks at a directory and some subdirectories and it looks at any file It's older than a week and deletes it just to keep that that that folder clean Well, that's great if I wanted to do that, but if I didn't want it to do that that would be malicious software, right? Also, as I said it would keep the owner of the device from doing something So let's say Um, I want to do anything on my device and there's a piece of software preventing me from do that as the owner of the device It it shouldn't prevent me from doing anything I want to do whether it's going to a certain website or running a certain application I mean, I've been on machines where they have antivirus installed antivirus again Kind of the misuse of the the term virus, but that's what it's known as. Um And it will prevent me from running certain applications stuff that I wrote it just I don't recognize this so and again That goes back to also the owner of the device So as the owner of the device you should be able to do anything you want on it Yeah, there should be no restrictions for you as long as the hardware can physically do it you should be able to do it in software and it shouldn't be doing anything you don't want it to do and uh If I let someone else or I go to use somebody else's computer I'm not the owner of that so there can be restrictions on that and that's why you have user based permissions and I can um You know make restrictions on there Let's say I don't want my family using bing search because I don't like Microsoft You know, uh, I can set a computer up to redirect anytime someone goes to bing to whatever search engine And I duck duck go or x search or start page or whatever I can whatever whatever search engine I say someone out there is going to be like oh, that's not a good one It doesn't really you know preserve your privacy But but whatever as as the owner of the device I commit restrictions on users of people who don't own the device But as the owner of the device I should have no restrictions Um, so and again, uh another example here is ransomware We all know what ransomware it encrypts files and then asks you to pay for the uh, decryption key So You can encrypt files on your device That's up to you you encrypt files and throw the passphrase away if you want that's your device Uh, you know what makes it malicious software is that somebody else is doing it to your device to your files Without your permission and not sharing the key the passphrase to unlock it, right? So it's not the fact that it's encrypting it It's fact that it's encrypting it in a way that you as the owner of that device does not want so Yeah, so that's how I would define uh malware or malicious software and but the funny thing is I I've been getting a lot of comments lately because I've uh made comments on App specific permissions on phones, which I think is just silly and I will stand by that and every single example I've gotten is somebody going well. I want to use this application, but it does this so I want to disable that if that application Doesn't have an option to disable that and you don't want it doing it and it's not a primary function of that application I would define that as malicious software. I don't get why you would install an application That does something you don't want it to do That's just silly and people will come up with excuses like Oh, well, I have to for work. Well, if you have to for work, they should be supplying you with a phone And then you're not the owner of the device. They are no one can make you install something on your own device Especially something that would be malicious software. I mean, there's your argument right there I'm not installing this malicious software on my personal device I understand everyone's situation is a little different Maybe they're saying you have to and they're not going to supply you with one. You know what phones are so cheap Okay, it's like I literally I got one a year ago because I tend to get one every, you know Black friday or cyber monday because it cost me almost nothing. I got one two years ago for free I just had to pay shipping. It was $15. Last year. Where's my phone right here? It was already done twice during this video. I paid $50 for that Which is actually more than I wanted to pay but it was only $50 The newer version of this Motorola phone currently Is you know, the original price was like 200 or 300 bucks. It's on sale right now for 50 bucks Next week from when I'm recording this is black friday and then cyber monday after that if it's $50 this week I'm really hoping it's free During those sales and I'm going to get a phone for free even though I don't really need one So that's why I got a stack of phones here because I pay like $15 for them and literally this is my phone from 2015 it's nexus phone nexus 5x and literally I have it for testing software if I need to run some proprietary software on a device now I get um that We don't live in a perfect world. I try to only use free and open source applications on my phone But there's drivers that and and of course a single line of code in any application Can be malicious and it's it's game over someone wrote recently in one of the comments on one of my videos That um, you know security is not a an all or nothing. Yes, it is one line of malicious code Can download multiple lines of malicious code and there's really no way to stop it if you let it run Um, and that's why you need to be careful about what you pick and what you use on your devices Um, and you know what I should have said this at the beginning But you do whatever you want on your device But the thing is I hate when people install these what I would consider malicious software and then complain about it And you can say oh, I don't consider that malicious software if it's doing something you don't want it to do It is malicious That's what malicious software is and to say oh, I'm going to install this application Which is going to do something I don't want to but then I'm going to use a third party You know Setting on my device to try to stop that one application if it's trying to do something It's going to circumvent that if if your user has permission to do something And you're saying oh well this app. I'm not going to let do it. It can find a way Trust me and also another big thing is This is a whole another thing, but why are you installing all these? I look at people's phones and they have all these apps like pages and pages of apps And it's like your phone or desktop computer laptop computer out of the box Should be able to do 99 of the things you need it to do on a phone The only real applications you need to install Would be things that run in the background stuff that you need for example, you know I could use something like jitsi jitsi is a free and open source Application for for video chats and I do that through the web browser. I don't need to install it I can do it through the web browser on here And that's great. I can also install the application but the thing is The big drawback to that whether I have the app installed or not is Notifications So usually what happens is if I'm at work my wife texts me and say hey You want a jitsi and then we log into the room that we always log into that we have bookmarked in our browsers But if you want to to get a notification of some sort You need an application that runs in the background all the time and checks for incoming messages so really The only I don't say the only but one of the main reasons to install an application is because you need it running in the background Either to check stuff or wait for incoming messages or send things periodically And that's number one complaint. I hear about people is like, oh well I I want to install an app, but but there's so many they do stuff in the background Well, the question is is it supposed to be doing something in the background in which case you want it to that's why you installed it If you don't want it to be doing stuff in the background. Why did you install it in the first place? I don't get that if I don't want something running in my back in the background I'm not going to install it and have it run in the background if it's running in the background You don't want it to and there's no option to disable that within the application Then it's malicious software I just it's just to me. It's so simple. It's like if a program does something you don't want it to do I'm staying repetitive now, but if you don't want it to do it don't install it Don't install it and then say well, you know, I'm just going to check a box in another application that says Don't let this program do that Yeah And um, yeah, so I know I'm going to get a lot of comments on this video Tell me that I'm wrong and try to give me scenarios where that's not true But it's like again, if it's doing something you don't want it to do it is malicious software. Don't install it. Okay um That's it. Thanks for watching put all your complaints in the comments below and I hope that you have a great day