You have to give hackers and cybercriminals credit because they are always coming up with innovative new ways to infect your devices and steal your data and money. The Securelist team at Kaspersky have discovered a new “fileless” type of malware that allows las stage Trojans to be hidden in plain sight in the file system.
The Kaspersky team say that this is the first time they have witnessed such an innovative form of cyberattack in the wild and that it was the breadth and scale of the sophistication and the number of commercial malware tools put to use in the attack.
What is so malicious about this new type of attack is that it is completely covert. Once a victim has downloaded a compromised RAR file they will be none the wiser as the corrupted files are then injected directly into the Windows system itself, as well as trusted programs. The objective of the attacks is to insert Trojans that can grant and escalate user privileges, download files from URLs, run arbitrary instructions and even take and share screenshots.
The complex nature of this attack means that the only way to defend against it is to ensure it never gets anywhere near any of your devices. You need to be very careful when downloading files from the internet and only ever hit download if you completely trust the source of the download.
Fortunately, when it comes to staying safe online, we have you covered. We’ve got everything from Windows security tips to online safety guides. Be sure to check them out and keep yourself protected whenever you are interacting with online websites and messages from unknown third parties.
Image via: Santeri Viinamäki (Wikimedia)
