Malware

1.) Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.  2.) Software developed for the purpose of causing harm to a computer system.   3.) The superset of malicious software, that often used as shorthand method for referencing multiple categories of software such as viruses, trojans, worms, spyware, etc.