Cyber threats in the modern day

You’ve likely heard the term “cyber threat” thrown around in the media.
But what exactly are these cyber threats?
A cyber or cybersecurity threat is a malicious act that seeks to damage
data, steal data, or disrupt digital life in general. Cyber attacks include
threats like computer viruses, data breaches, and Denial of Service
(DoS) attacks. However, to truly understand this concept, let’s go a bit
further into the background of cybersecurity.
The growth and innovation that’s been happening in the internet realm
has been phenomenal.
Not only has it become easier for people to do their financial
transactions, transmit information, or communicate, but it's even easier
to run a business as well — all because of the internet.
The sad part, however, is just as online technologies have progressed, so
have cyber threats.
Hackers can even exploit the day-to-day technologies that you're using
to carry out cybercrimes. They target unknowing companies and take
advantage of any loophole in their cyber defense networks.

Today, the term is almost exclusively used to describe information

security matters. Because it’s hard to visualize how digital signals
traveling across a wire can represent an attack, we’ve taken to
visualizing the digital phenomenon as a physical one.

What is real, however, is the intent of the attacker as well as the

potential impact. While many cyber attacks are merely nuisances, some
are quite serious, even potentially threatening human lives.
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, is a blanket term for viruses,
worms, trojans and other harmful computer programs hackers use to
wreak destruction and gain access to sensitive information. As Microsoft
puts it, "[malware] is a catch-all term to refer to any software designed
to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network." In
other words, software is identified as malware based on its intended use,
rather than a particular technique or technology used to build it.

This means that the question of, say, what the difference is between
malware and a virus misses the point a bit: a virus is a type of malware,
so all viruses are malware (but not every piece of malware is a virus).