human
Can you explain the difference between a virus, malware and a trojan horse?
assistant
The main difference between a virus, malware and a trojan horse is how they spread and the type of damage they can cause to a computer system. A virus is a program that replicates itself and spreads to other computers without the user's knowledge or permission. It can corrupt files, spread to other computers and cause harm to the system. Malware is similar to a virus, but is more generalized and can be used to gather private information or slow down the performance of a computer. A trojan horse is a malicious software program disguised as a legitimate application or file, attached to an email message or found on a download website, that when launched, can perform malicious activities like unauthorized data access, data loss, data theft, and computer system damage.