Introduction to Malware

After this short course, you will have an understanding of the evolvement and prevention of malware. You will become knowledgeable of different types of malware and will understand the mechanisms different pieces of malware use to infect computers. 

The covered topics include historical development of malware, different types of malware, and some infection and hiding strategies used by malware. The first module will be an introduction to malware including its history, purpose, naming conventions and potential damage caused by it. In the second module, we will take a closer look at the different types of malware. In the third module, we will study the Windows Portable Executable file format as a target of malware infections.

After each module, there is a quiz. The quizzes have altogether 20 multiple choice questions (Module 1: 5 questions, Module 2: 8 questions, Module 3: 7 questions). Each question is worth 1 point. To pass, you need to achieve an overall total of 20 / 20 points (100 %) from the quizzes.  You may take the quizzes as many times as necessary to reach the full score.

The estimated average study time of this course is 12 hours. This is an entry level course that can be included in the SPECTRO Cyber Security Basics Certification.

This course is delivered to you by SPECTRO. SPECTRO is a consortium consisting of 12 higher education institutions from 7 different countries, 2 innovative SMEs, 1 leading research centre in Information Systems and EIT Digital. SPECTRO is co-funded by the European Union’s Digital Europe Programme.