A user has been plagued by pop-ups ever since installing a program that promised to remove viruses from their system. They installed the program after a pop-up on their system told them they had 5 viruses. What type of malware does this exemplify?
Explanation
Answer: A - A user who has been plagued by pop-ups ever since installing a program that promised to remove viruses from their system is best exemplified by adware.
Key Takeaway: Adware is responsible for unwanted ads and popups on your computer. In this case, the adware used a form of social engineering to get the user to click on the pop up, install the software, and thus open the computer up to more adware. Spyware is software that runs in the background and sends information about the computer to an outside party, while viruses and worms are malicious, self-replicating codes that cause purposeful damage to a system.
