Malware (for “malicious software”) is the term for software that is
designed to act on a computer in ways concealed from and unwanted by
the computer’s user. Viruses, worms, and spyware are common types of
malware. (Virus is sometimes used synonymously with malware, but we
will use it in the narrower sense in which it refers to only a particular kind
of malware.)Malware code need not be natively executable object code; it
could as well be interpreted code such as a script or an executable macro
such as those used byMicrosoft® Word.