How malware can encroach your privacy?

by vishal tripathi Digital Markiting Expart

Shel Sharma at Cyphort once said, "Malware may be delivered through a mechanism that the end user may not even realize they are using".

The statement itself has brought up many questions. The cyber-attacks are not like they were before. Now, they become civilized in a lot of aspects, mainly in terms of intrusion. The cyber-criminals have become so smart that they now the attacks can even delude the computer security software until it’s too late.

The two common methods of attacks are- spearphishing and logging browsing activities. Spearphishing refers to the fraudulent emails that aim to target through authenticated and promising setups and links. Experts noted that attachments or the links sent by the attacker may look safe but upon downloading they can severely infect the system. The other way represents the downloading of the malware by visiting an unsecured website. Shel Sharma also noted that malicious codes can exist on the most popular website from where it becomes easier to crawl through the vulnerabilities, settle the background, and start the function.

Though many of the anti-virus and anti-malware programs are getting modified and integrated with features that read behavior of the codes and programs, scans for any unwanted program running in the background, and also set’s a windows recovery point like Advance PC Protector but somehow these attacks can escape at the initial stage and get caught after they had caused some harm to the pc.

Let’s see how the hackers plan their way to invading the systems,

1.Baffling the way by encrypting the code

Many of the hackers infect the business document with confusing names and obfuscating descriptions that can be overlooked by the pc protector software. Unfortunately, in such cases, the attack gets triggered and only after its effects can be seen, the malware may get caught.

2.Mobile Ads

Many attackers have developed utility applications and uploaded them on play store. Once, the application is download it fills the entire memory with malware which gets transferred to the system as soon as they are connected to the systems.

3.Social media platforms

Due to its popularity, people have started trusting the media than their subconscious state. This has made very easier for the crackers to fake their identity and send the viruses and worms through links which they are 100% sure to get clicked. In such cases, the links can be to an advertising site, malicious page to download a pc protector software or leading to download of an unknown software with the user’s awareness.

4.User’s irresponsibility and excitement

Most of us are aware of the instruction to not click on any suspicious sites or links, still, we cannot hold the excitements and continue using bad reputed websites. Since the most precautions are avoided, therefore, the majority of attacks take place. These attacks can be avoided if the customer does not get greedy by reading promotional emails and vouchers or do not visit untrusted cyberspace in order to look for something they are not supposed to.

5.Advertisements

It is one of the easiest ways as Adsense is one of the marketing activity. People have been promoting the malware in the name of trusted brands using enticing offers through display ads. This has proven to be the most effective and downloading of the malicious code can be triggered even just by clicking the advertisement.

It is not that we are not aware but when things please our eyes, we are bound to go crazy behind them. There is a lot we can do to protect our system if we just give a second thought before clicking or downloading any links.