Coronavirus-related documents are being used by cybercriminals for malicious activities.
Coronavirus used to spread malware – The most important thing to start with:
- Malicious files discovered in coronavirus awareness information
- Files contain Trojans or worms
- Kaspersky expects such threats to increase
The topic of coronavirus is currently in the media every day. Cybercriminals are now taking advantage of the fear of infection and hiding malware in documents that claim to contain information about the virus.
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Malware detected in files related to coronavirus
A recent Kaspersky found malicious document files disguised as information about the coronavirus. The file names suggest that the contents contain virus protection instructions or current threat information.
These are typically macro viruses . However, these files contained malware such as Trojans or worms. These are capable of destroying, encrypting, changing or copying data or disrupting the operation of computers or computer networks.
Kaspersky expects such incidents to increase
Currently only a few files have been identified. However, Kaspersky assumes that these cases will now increase due to the topicality of the topic.
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Kaspersky malware analyst Anton Ivanov said: “The coronavirus, which is currently being hotly discussed in the media, has already been used as bait by cybercriminals. While we have only identified ten unique files so far, since this type of activity occurs frequently on popular media topics, we expect this number to increase. As people continue to be concerned about their health, fake documents purporting to provide information about the coronavirus may be spreading more and more malware.”
Which files are known so far?
There is no “one” malware that is used in the malicious files, but different types of malware are used:
- Worm.VBS.Dinihou.r
- Worm.Python.Agent.c
- UDS:DangerousObject.Multi.Generic
- Trojan.WinLNK.Agent.gg
- Trojan.WinLNK.Agent.ew
- HEUR:Trojan.WinLNK.Agent.gen
- HEUR:Trojan.PDF.Badur.b
Source: Kaspersky , Coronavirus article image from Lightspring / Shutterstock.com
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