Experts have warned that one of the key ways to get infected
easily is to use a free software, reports ITRealms.
According to a 20-page ‘Ransomware: Hostage Rescue Manual’
sighted by ITRealms, the free software vector, is yet another dangerous path.
For these set of experts at Ransomware, another common way
to infect a user’s machine, be it mobile devices and computers, is to offer a
free version of a piece of software.
They explained that this could come in many ways such as
“cracked” versions of expensive games or software, free games, game “mods”,
adult content, screensavers or bogus software advertised as a way to cheat in
online games or get around a website’s paywall. By preying on the user in this
way, the hackers could bypass any firewall or email filter.
“After all, the user downloaded the file directly
themselves!” part of the manual exposed.
Also, ITRealms
gathered that a recent ransomware attack exploited the popularity of the game
Minecraft by offering a “mod” to players of Minecraft. When they installed it,
the software also installed a sleeper version of ransomware that activated
weeks later.
They pointed out that one method hackers will use to install
malicious software on a machine is to exploit one of these unpatched
vulnerabilities.
Examples of exploits, ITRealms gathered, could range from vulnerabilities in an un-patched version of Adobe
Flash, a bug in Java or an old web browser all the way to an un-patched
operating system.
+ITRealms DSA
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