There must be an enormous botnet to achieve that kind of computing power. Botnets consist of zombie computers, so to speak. On the face of it they are running normally, but they are also functioning silently as attackers. The reason for this is a Trojan with a backdoor component that slumbers unnoticed on the computer and, if necessary, is activated by its operator.
If a botnet attack or a DDoS attack is successful, websites or even entire networks are no longer accessible. Fake antivirus Trojans are particularly insidious. Instead of protecting, they get every device into serious trouble. With alleged virus findings, they want to cause panic among unsuspecting users and persuade them to purchase effective protection by paying a fee.
But instead of a helpful virus scanner, the user only gets more problems, as their payment data is conveyed to the Trojan originator for further misuse. So if you suddenly get a virus warning in your browser when visiting a website, you should ignore this and only trust your system virus scanner.
This type of program steals user account information from online gamers. One could argue that these messengers are barely in use nowadays. However, even new messenger services are not immune to Trojans. As recently as December , a Windows Trojan was commandeered via a Telegram channel.
Instant messaging should also be protected against dangerous phishing attacks. In January , security researchers at Kaspersky discovered a Trojan called Skygofree. The malware has extremely advanced functions and can, for example, connect to Wi-Fi networks on its own, even if the user has deactivated the function on their device.
The Skygofree Trojan can also monitor the popular messenger service WhatsApp. It reads messages and can also steal them. They may seem like a relic from another century, yet they are still active and pose a significant threat. Faketoken, for example, sends mass SMS messages to expensive international numbers and disguises itself in the system as a standard SMS app. The smartphone owner has to pay the costs for this.
These programs can harvest email addresses from your computer. Trojans now not only target Windows computers, but also Mac computers and mobile devices. Accordingly, you should never feel too safe or be on the internet without up-to-date anti-malware protection such as Kaspersky Internet Security. Malware often gets onto computers via infected attachments, manipulated text messages or bogus websites.
However, there are also secret service Trojans that can be installed on the target systems remotely without the user noticing and without any interaction on the part of the targets. The Pegasus software from the Israeli manufacturer NSO, for example, is distributed via the mobile phone network. Pegasus includes a powerful arsenal of interception options.
The device can be read completely, calls can be recorded, or the phone can be used as a bugging device. In Germany, too, police authorities use a state Trojan to monitor and track criminals. If surveillance software is used by the state to track and punish criminal offenses, cybercriminals have exactly the opposite in mind. In the latter case, it is all about personal enrichment at the expense of their victims.
In doing so, the criminals use different programs, sometimes even entire malware chains. How do they do it? One example may be a backdoor installed unnoticed on the computer via an infected email attachment.
This gateway ensures that further malware is loaded onto the PC secretly and silently without being noticed. Another example is a keylogger to record keystrokes such as passwords or confidential content, a banking Trojan to steal financial data, or ransomware that encrypts the entire computer and only releases the hijacked data following payment of a significant amount of bitcoin. Notorious in this context is the malware Emotet , which periodically makes its rounds and is described as the "most destructive malware.
The BSI has set up an extra page with information on Emotet. In summary:. So it is even riskier to open any attachments that come with emails like these.
Another option for ransom hunters is a Trojan horse model 2. A Trojan is an object that infiltrates into your PC pretending to be something else. For instance, you download an installer for some program you want or an update for some software.
However, what is unpacked turns out to be a harmful agent that corrupts your data. As for the peer file transfer protocols like torrents or eMule, the threat is that they are even more trust-based than the rest of the Internet.
You can never guess what you download until you get it. Our suggestion is that you use trustworthy websites. Also, it is reasonable to scan the folder containing the downloaded objects with the anti-malware utility as soon as the downloading is finished. Sometimes racketeers would decrypt some of your files to prove that they indeed have the decryption program. As Lok virus is a relatively recent ransomware, security software engineers have not yet found a method to undo its work.
However, the anti-ransomware instruments are constantly upgraded, so the solution may soon be available. It is still risky. After obtaining the money, the racketeers may deliver a wrong decryption key to the victim. There were reports about racketeers simply vanishing after getting the ransom without even bothering to reply.
The optimal countermeasure to ransomware is to have aan OS restore point or the copies of your critical files in the cloud disk or at least on an external storage.
Surely, that might be insufficient. Your most crucial thing could be that file you were working on when it all went down. Nevertheless, it is something. It is also reasonable to scan your drives with the antivirus program after the system is rolled back.
There are other ransomware products, besides Lok, that work similarly. Examples of those are Xcmb , Dehd , Hudf , and some others. The two main differences between them and the Lok are the ransom amount and the encoding method. The rest is almost identical: files become encrypted, their extensions altered, ransom notes appear in every directory containing encrypted files.
Some lucky people were able to decrypt the arrested files with the help of the free software provided by anti-ransomware specialists. Sometimes the racketeers mistakenly send the decryption key to the victims in the ransom readme. Such an extraordinary fail allows the user to restore the files. But obviously, one should never rely on such a chance. There is no better way to recognize, remove and prevent ransomware than to use an anti-malware software from GridinSoft 5.
When setup file has finished downloading, double-click on the setup-antimalware-fix. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will automatically start scanning your system for Lok infections and other malicious programs.
This process can take a minutes, so I suggest you periodically check on the status of the scan process. When the scan has finished, you will see the list of infections that GridinSoft Anti-Malware has detected. If not, there is still a function of System Restore but it needs a Restore Point to be previously saved. There are other ways to beat ransomware, but they take time. However, behind the scenes, the game copied itself onto shared directories where other users could find it.
From there, the game could spread across entire computer networks. For the most part, it was a harmless prank. In the s, another infamous Trojan appeared disguised in the form of a simple Whack-A-Mole game. The program hid a version of NetBus , a program that allows one to remotely control a Microsoft Windows computer system over a network.
With remote access, the attacker could do any number of things to a computer, even open its CD tray. As clever as the worm was from a technical perspective, its use of social engineering was arguably its most ingenious component. Through the s, Trojan attacks continued to evolve, as did the threats they carried. In , a Windows-based backdoor Trojan horse called Beast emerged and was capable of infecting almost all versions of Windows.
Then, in late , another backdoor Trojan called Zlob was distributed disguised as a required video codec in the form of ActiveX. The s also saw a rise in the number of Mac users, and cybercriminals followed suit. The motivations behind Trojan attacks also began to shift around this time. Many early cyberattacks were motivated by a lust for power, control, or pure destruction.
By the s, an increasing number of attacks were motivated by greed. In , a Trojan named Zeus targeted Microsoft Windows in order to steal banking information by means of a keylogger. In , hackers released Torpig, also known as Sinowal and Mebroot, which turned off anti-virus applications, allowing others to access the computer, modify data, and steal confidential information like passwords and other sensitive data.
As cybercrime entered the s, the greed continued, but hackers started thinking bigger. The rise of untraceable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin led to a rise in ransomware attacks. In , the Cryptolocker Trojan horse was discovered. Cryptolocker encrypts the files on a user's hard drive and demands a ransom payment to the developer in order to receive the decryption key. Later that same year, a number of copycat ransomware Trojans were also discovered. The s have also seen a shift in how victims are targeted.
While many Trojans still use a blanket approach, attempting to infect as many users as possible, a more targeted approach seems to be on the rise. Many of the Trojans we hear about today were designed to target a specific company, organization, or even government. In , Stuxnet , a Windows Trojan, was detected. It was the first worm to attack computerized control systems, and there are suggestions that it was designed to target Iranian nuclear facilities.
In , Tiny Banker Trojan Tinba made headlines. In , the Emotet Trojan , once a banking Trojan in its own right, was seen to be delivering other types of malware, including other Trojans. As one of the oldest and most common ways to deliver malware, the history of Trojans follows the history of cybercrime itself.
The days of pranks are long gone. Instead, they continue to be serious cybercriminal tools used mostly for data stealing, espionage, and Distributed Denial of Service DDoS attacks. Here are some common threats that come from Trojan attacks:. They attack mobile devices as well , which makes sense given the tempting target presented by the billions of phones in use. Such Trojans usually lurk on unofficial and pirate app markets, enticing users to download them. The Trojans run the full gamut of mischief, infecting the phone with ads and keyloggers, which can steal information.
Dialer Trojans can even generate revenue by sending out premium SMS texts. While Google can remove browser add-ons from computers, on phones the Trojans can place transparent icons on the screen.
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