Malware vs Spyware: Key Differences & How to Stay Safe

What Are Malware and Spyware?

In today’s digital environment, it’s known to all that both malware and spyware stand for cyberthreats, imperiling cybersecurity. Since both are malicious in nature, understanding their distinctions is crucial for implementing effective cybersecurity measures.

# Malware

Malware, short for malicious software, refers to any intrusive software developed by cybercriminals or hackers to steal data and damage or destroy computers and computer systems. Examples of common malware include viruses, worms, Trojan viruses, spyware, adware, and ransomware. For a long time, malware attacks have ruined data in massive amounts.

Malware can infect your device via file share, free software download, email attachment, portable drive usage, etc., followed by slow device performance, corrupted programs and files, data loss, identity theft, credit card fraud, device not starting or shutting down, and so on.

# Spyware

Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on a computing device without the user’s knowledge. It’s one of the most common threats to internet users. Once installed, it monitors your internet activities, tracks login credentials, and spies on sensitive information.

Spyware can make its way onto a device without the user’s knowledge via an app install package, file attachment, or malicious website. Once your computer is infected with spyware, you will find a noticeable reduction in processor and network connection. In the case of mobile devices, data usage and battery life drain fast.

6 Key Differences of Malware vs Spyware

1. Malware vs Spyware: Objective

Malware and spyware are both types of malicious software, but they differ in their primary objective. Malware is a broad term that encompasses various types of malicious software, including viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, botnets, etc.

The core purpose of malware is to cause widespread damage or illegal profit, with diverse and destructive intentions.

• Viruses: disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to your computer system.
• Trojans: disguise themselves within legitimate apps or files to trick you into installing them, giving hackers access to your system.
• Ransomware: destroy & delete system files, encrypt data, hijack computing resources, steal login credentials or financial information for ransom or fraud.
• Worms: make copies of themselves over and over, taking up your disk space, slowing down system, and disrupting system operation.

In contrast, spyware has a focused and covert objective. It is specifically designed to secretly monitor your activities and collect sensitive information without your awareness. Its main goal lies in data theft rather than direct system destruction.

The range of collected information is extensive, including passwords, credit card numbers, browsing history, search records, emails, documents, screenshots, images, and even your geographical location.

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2. Malware vs Spyware: Method of Attack

Malware and spyware are different method of application which depends on its specific type. Here are several most common methods of installing malware on your computer:

• Phishing: The most common method by far is to send deceptive emails that pretend to be from a trusted individual or organization, with the aim of tricking you into clicking on links or downloading attachments.
• Software Bundles: Malware is usually bundled with the files and applications that are downloaded. These downloads generally come from third parties, and the malicious software is often bundled together with programs such as software key generators.
• External Drives: Hackers often make their way infect USB flash drives and external hard drives. The most common one is a recycled hard drive.
• Drive-By Downloads: Drive-by downloads refer to the situation where, when you visit a compromised website, malware will take advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities to automatically download and install itself – in some cases, you haven’t done anything on the site.

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Once infected, their behaviors can be very aggressive. For instance, ransomware immediately encrypts files, viruses infect other executable files, and worms replicate and spread through networks.

As for spyware, it also often uses vulnerabilities, phishing, bundled installation, and social engineering for initial infection. However, spyware particularly emphasizes covert implantation and long-term latency, disguising itself as useful tools, utility programs, or browser extensions to lower user vigilance.

After infection, it will act quietly in the background, performing operations such as keylogging, screen capturing, network traffic monitoring, and system scanning for data theft, and secretly sending the collected data to the attackers without your knowledge.

3. Malware vs Spyware: Threat Level

The threat level of malware varies widely depending on its type and variant. For instance,

• Ransomware can directly cause system crashes, permanent data loss, or significant financial losses.
• Destructive viruses or worms may lead to system crashes, data corruption, or network issues.
• Botnets allow hackers to fully control systems, posing a high threat.
• Some adware mainly causes annoyance, system performance degradation, and privacy risks, with a relatively low threat level.

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The threat of spyware mainly lies in its long-term, covert privacy invasion and the potential catastrophic consequences it may bring. It can lurk for months or even years without detection, infringing upon the confidential information of individuals and organizations.

Although it usually does not directly damage the system or hardware, its results are often far-reaching and difficult to reverse. Once the stolen information is misused, it can lead to many consequences that you could never have anticipated, like financial losses, identity theft, critical business secrets leakage, and even personal safety threats.

4. Malware vs Spyware: Recovery Difficulty

The difficulty of recovering from malware also varies by type.

• Ransomware is the most challenging and costly to recover from, as paying the ransom is not guaranteed to be successful. Recovery mainly relies on backups.
• The recovery from viruses can also be difficult, requiring thorough removal of the infection source, system repair or reinstallation, and data recovery from backups.
• Other types of malware can usually be effectively removed with professional cleaning tools, with a low level of recovery difficulty.

Spyware presents unique and significant challenges for recovery. Firstly, its sophisticated hiding mechanisms make complete removal quite difficult. Even if the direct program is removed, remnants may still be active.

Besides, verifying 100% removal and ensuring all data leakage channels have been blocked are also highly challenging. The most difficult is to assess the extent of damage, that is, checking exactly what and how much data was stolen.

Besides, in the future, stolen passwords, confidential information, or other private data may be exploited at any time, posing a long-term and hard-to-eradicate threat.

5. Malware vs Spyware: Response Strategy

Upon discovering a malware or spyware infection, the first response is to immediately isolate the infected device and disconnect it from the network to prevent further spread or damage. Then, conduct a comprehensive scan and removal using professional and updated anti-malware.

In the case of malicious software being installed on a PC, make sure your existing backups are available and try your best to remove the malware, avoiding additional costs. Instead, you should immediately seek help from professional security organizations. Afterward, fix the security flaws on your system and restore the system or data from backups.

Once you found spyware infections on your device, the most urgent step is to immediately change all related passwords of all important accounts (especially email, bank, payment, and social media accounts) and enable strong authentication.

After that, you still need to closely monitor bank accounts and credit messages for any unusual activity, check and reset browser settings and extensions, and make any effort to reduce the extent and scope of information leakage.

6. Malware vs Spyware: Prevention Methods

For preventing malware, the measures include:

• Install and keep up-to-date computer security software.
• Regularly update the operating system and all software.
• Be cautious of email attachments and links.
• Only download software from official and trusted sources.
• Regularly back up important data.
• Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication.

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As a matter of fact, all protective measures above against malware cover the way to prevent spyware. On this basis, you should strengthen the protection from the following aspects:

• Be cautious when installing browser extensions or add-ins.
• Use browsers or plugins with anti-spyware.
• Pay attention to software permissions.
• Deny unnecessary or unknown permission requests such as camera, microphone, location, and contacts.
• Regularly scan with a reliable anti-spyware.
• Establish a more secure environment, such as a virtual machine or dedicated device, when using sensitive information (online banking).

Necessary Steps to Protect Your Data

About spyware vs malware, a conclusion can be drawn from the six key differences between malware and spyware, especially for recovery difficulty. That is, data backup is indispensable in cybersecurity.

To create backups, it’s necessary to use professional PC backup software. MiniTool ShadowMaker stands out from the market. This program is noted for its integrated backup and recovery and can satisfy your basic needs, allowing to perform file backup, selected partitions backup, disk backup, and system backup.

On top of that, MiniTool ShadowMaker also supports performing disk cloning without data loss, such as cloning HDD to SSD or cloning SSD to larger SSD.

Let me show you how to back up data on Windows 11/10 with this tool:

Step 1. Hit the download button below to get MiniTool ShadowMaker on your PC. By the way, you can try almost its features for free for 30 days.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2. Launch it and click Keep Trial to enter its main interface.

Step 2. Navigate to the Backup page > select the backup source.

If you want to back up the entire system, the system-related partitions are selected by default in SOURCE. So, you only need to select a storage path for the backup image in DESTINATION.

If you only want to make backups for important files, folders, partitions, or the whole disk, then go to SOURCE > Folders and Files or Disk and Partitions > specify the items you need to protect.  

Step 3. Click on Back Up Now to start the process at once.

Wrapping Things Up

In the view of malware vs spyware, we summarize six main differences between malware and spyware, involving objective, attack methods, threat level, recovery difficulty, response measures, and prevention strategies.

At the same time, backups play a significant role in recovery and prevention. MiniTool ShadowMaker is a better choice to perform data backup and disaster restoration for you.

If you encounter any issues in the use of MiniTool ShadowMaker, please leave a comment below or contact us via [email protected]. We’ll reply to you as soon as possible.

Malware vs Spyware FAQ