Free software vector, a dangerous path - Experts

ITRealms:

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.

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