We know a virus is bad. And we know malware is bad. But what’s the difference between the two? We explain it in our simple-to-understand jargon buster.

While the two terms are often used interchangeably, malware and virus have different meanings, though it is true that you want neither on your computer.

Malware stands for malicious software. It’s an umbrella term for all types of malicious software, regardless of their intent, or how they spread.

A computer virus, on the other hand, refers to a specific type of malicious software that spreads by duplicating itself and attaching itself an otherwise harmless computer file. When that file is copied from one device to another, the virus travels with it.

As such, a virus is a type of malware. All computer viruses are malware, but not all malware is a computer virus.

There are plenty of other types of malware other than computer viruses. In fact, the popularity of viruses has decreased over time, and it isn’t a particularly popular type of malware in today’s eco-climate.

Malware can often be categorised by how it spreads (yes, like a virus, or a worm) or what it does when it infects you (ransomware, spyware, keyloggers.)

Malware types such as ransomware (that encrypts your files and demands a ransom to decrypt them) botnets (or backdoor malware) and spyware (that can steal financial information) are far more prevalent categories of malware than computer viruses.

So why do we still use the term virus so often?

Some of the earliest known types of malware were computer viruses. This in turn led to the term “antivirus” being given to security software, despite such software being designed to detect and remove all types of malware. So in effect, the term has just stuck around. This has been further fuelled by TV, where many a movie or television scene has referenced malware as (often incorrectly or ambiguously) a computer virus.