Microsoft® Windows® Security: Essentials

The Essentials and Beyond

In this chapter, you learned about malware. Viruses require user interaction to execute, whereas worms can spread to other computers across the network without user intervention. Trojan horses appear to be one thing but have a hidden malicious element. Buffer-overflow attacks take advantage of vulnerabilities in unpatched operating systems. The primary protection against malware is AV software that is kept up to date.

You also learned about social engineering—a technique used by attackers to trick users into giving up sensitive data or taking actions such as installing malware on their computers. Social engineers commonly try to trick people in person, on the phone, and via email. Phishing is a popular social-engineering ...