How to Spot Less Suspicious Malware Files

Posted: February 07, 2017

[caption id="attachment_12991" align="alignright" width="251"] Image from pcworld.com[/caption] Malware is a type of virus that attackers use to infect someone's PC in order to hack into it. In the past, malware files have been relatively easy to spot. Recently, attackers have switched to a new type of file in order to make their planned attacks less suspicious. Knowing what files hackers are now using can help keep PC users safe from their potential attacks. Lucian Constantin, writer for PC World, shares how to spot malware files.

Beware! Malware distributors are switching to less suspicious file types

Recent email-based malware distribution campaigns have used malicious LNK and SVG attachments instead of JavaScript. After aggressively using JavaScript email attachments to distribute malware for the past year, attackers are now switching to less suspicious file types to trick users. Last week, researchers from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center warned about a new wave of spam emails that carried malicious .LNK files inside ZIP archives. Those files had malicious PowerShell scripts attached to them. PowerShell is a scripting language for automating Windows system administration tasks. It has been abused to download malware in the past and there are even malware programs written entirely in PowerShell. Read the entire article Beware! Malware Distributors are Switching to Less Suspicious File Types on PC World.