15. Describe the motives for using specific malicious software attacks (AC 3.3)

Virus Viruses are designed to delete or corrupt data, slow down your system performance, open back doors for further attacks, or disable your computer all together. The motives can vary, but some of them might be: causing destruction and chaos, disrupting operations, stealing data, sabotaging businesses or governments, or just to show off the skill of the hacker. They can be used as a revenge by a disgruntled employee or a competitor. It can be a method of political activism or protest. Worms With worms, they often cause large scale damage quickly. One of the reasons hackers release worms, is just to prove it can be done, as a proof of concept. Worms can be used in many different ways: spying on government agencies, taking down business operations or creating distractions for other cybercrimes. There have been cases where worm attacks have caused enormous financial loses in the billions of pounds by infecting thousands of devices across the world. Ransomware This kind of malware is almost always just for financial gain. Whether it's targeting individuals and demanding few hundreds pounds in ransom, to targeting large corporations, hospitals or government agencies and demanding tens of millions of pounds. Spyware Spyware can be used for corporate espionage, where losing company secret can be disastrous. Think of Coca Cola losing it's recipe. Businesses might deploy spyware on competitors business to gain a business advantage. Governments have also been known to deploy spyware to track political dissidents, journalists or foreign officials. Trojan Trojans can be used for various nefarious purposes, they're very versatile. They can be used for all the purposes listed above: stealing money, gathering sensitive data, spying on users, creating botnets and delivering ransomware. But what motivates bad actors the most is financial gain. Banking trojans are designed to steal online banking details, credit card details and cryptocurrency wallets.