Malware
Malware (a portmanteau for malicious software) is any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network. Malware does the damage after it is implanted or introduced in some way into a target's computer and can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content, and other software. The code is described as computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, and scareware, among other terms. Malware has a malicious intent, acting against the interest of the computer user—and so does not include software that causes unintentional harm due to some deficiency, which is typically described as a software bug.
Boot sector
As an example, the malware [[Petya (malware)|NotPetya]] attempts to gain administrative privileges on an operating system, and then would attempt to overwrite the boot sector of a computer. The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] has also developed malware that attempts to modify the boot sector in order to load additional drivers to be used by other malware.
[[Category:Computer file systems]]
[[Category:BIOS]]
[[Category:Booting]]