Questions tagged [malware]
Malware is any software application which subverts the will of the legitimate owner of a computer, by means of force or subterfuge, with or without personal or monetary gain on the part of the creator.
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How is the "WannaCry" Malware spreading and how should users defend themselves from it?
There's a new strain of attacks which is affecting a lot of systems around the world (including the NHS in the UK and Telefonica in Spain) which is being called "WannaCry" amongst other names.
It ...
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What should you do if you catch encryption ransomware mid-operation?
You boot up your computer one day and while using it you notice that your drive is unusually busy. You check the System Monitor and notice that an unknown process is using the CPU and both reading and ...
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Search for military installed backdoors on laptop
My laptop was confiscated by the military institute of my country and they made me to give them all my passwords (I cannot tell you the name of my country). They did not give it back to me for one ...
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Help! My home PC has been infected by a virus! What do I do now?
This is an attempt to ask a canonical question as discussed in this old meta post. The goal is to create something helpful that can be used as a duplicate when non experts ask about virus infections.
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How secure are virtual machines really? False sense of security?
I was reading this CompTIA Security+ SYO-201 book, and the author David Prowse claims that:
Whichever VM you select, the VM cannot cross the software boundaries set in
place. For example, a virus ...
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How do you explain the necessity of "nuke it from orbit" to management and users?
When a machine has been infected with malware, most of us here immediately identify the appropriate action as "nuke it from orbit" - i.e. wipe the system and start over. Unfortunately, this is often ...
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How can USB sticks be dangerous?
We all know the story of the USB drive left outside a power plant which was found by a worker and inserted into a computer to see the contents which then allowed a hack to ensue.
Here is my question, ...
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What is the safest way to deal with loads of incoming PDF files, some of which could potentially be malicious?
As an investigative journalist I receive each day dozens of messages, many of which contain PDF documents. But I'm worried about some of the potentially malicious consequences of blindly opening them ...
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Has it been mathematically proven that antivirus can't detect all viruses?
What analysis was Bruce Schneier referencing when he wrote:
Viruses have no “cure.” It’s been mathematically proven that it is always possible to write a virus that any existing antivirus program ...
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Is there any way to safely examine the contents of a USB memory stick?
Suppose I found a USB memory stick lying around, and wanted to examine its contents in an attempt to locate its rightful owner. Considering that USB sticks might actually be something altogether more ...
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Alternatives to anti-virus for keeping oneself safe
I have read a lot of articles that talk about how using an AV is less safe than not having one for more intermediate PC users who are careful with what they click and download.
For example, here are ...
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Can a virus destroy the BIOS of a modern computer?
In the late 1990s, a computer virus known as CIH began infecting some computers. Its payload, when triggered, overwrote system information and destroyed the computer's BIOS, essentially bricking ...
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Should I get an antivirus for Ubuntu?
Considering the recent thread regarding anti-virus for the Mac I wonder how many of the arguments put forth are relevant today to Linux systems, specifically Ubuntu.
There are no known Ubuntu desktop ...
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Can a malware power on a computer?
I've just downloaded and executed a piece of malware on my computer.
I don't have much time right now, so I just powered it off (turned it off via the Start menu), hoping that it won't be able to ...
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What is the risk of copy and pasting Linux commands from a website? How can some commands be invisible? [duplicate]
Like all beginners in the land of Linux, I usually look for websites that
contain some useful shell commands, mark it with my mouse, copy it (CTRL + C)
and paste it into a terminal.
For example, if ...
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Can malicious code fit in 14 bytes?
I was reading this The New York Times (NYT) article about the hack of Jeff Bezos's phone. The article states:
The May 2018 message that contained the innocuous-seeming video file, with a tiny 14-...
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Does a Virtual Machine stop malware from doing harm?
I would like to know if it is safe for the host system of a virtual machine (VM - VirtualBox OSE in my case) to execute malware.
Can a virus break out and read or write data from the host system? ...
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My email address is being used to enroll for online services. Should I be concerned?
Just before Christmas I received the following message in one of my GMail accounts:
Sign-in attempt was blocked
********@gmail.com [redacted by me]
Someone just used your password to try to ...
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How to investigate an unknown 1.5GB file named "sudo" in my Linux home directory?
I found a file in my home directory named "sudo". It's 1.5GB in size and I have no idea where it came from.
-rw-r--r-- 1 foo foo 1598296064 Aug 9 11:22 sudo
Does anybody have any tips on how to ...
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How to safely view a malicious PDF?
I have a PDF with important information that may contain malware. What would be the best way to view it?
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Can Beehive detect a Snowden-like actor?
In a seminar, one of the Authors of Beehive: Large-Scale Log Analysis for Detecting Suspicious Activity in Enterprise Networks said that this system can prevent actions like Snowden did.
From their ...
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What happens if you run WannaCry after installing the necessary patches?
I understand that WannaCry spreads itself by exploiting the SMBv1 vulnerability, which is fixed by patch MS17-010.
Does this mean that even with the patch installed, WannaCry can still infect the ...
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Is it safe to install malware in a VM
Is it safe to install malware in virtual machines? I would like to investigate malware, but I don't want to infect my own computer.
Can I install the malware in a VMWare VM, maybe even without ...
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Can you trace malware back to a specific keyboard?
A CNN article on the recent US Election hacks claims that
...the administration has traced the hack to the specific keyboards -- which featured Cyrillic characters -- that were used to construct ...
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Does open source "protestware" represent a security risk?
Since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian war, a new kind of software was created, which is called "protestware".
In the best case, the devs only add some (personal) statements about the ...
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What security risks are posed by software vendors deploying SSL Intercepting proxies on user desktops (e.g. Superfish)
There has been quite a bit of concern noted relating to the recent discovery that Lenovo are pre-installing a piece of Adware (Superfish) which has the capability of intercepting SSL traffic from ...
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How can empty USB sticks contain malware?
I read a BBC article about empty USB sticks containing malware:
Berlin-based researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell said a device
that appeared to be completely empty could still contain a virus....
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Can headphones transmit malware?
Can headphones transmit malware? My friend borrowed my headphones (a pair of Apple EarPods) and plugged them into his Android mobile phone for a few minutes in order to listen to a voice message. ...
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If malware does not run in a VM why not make everything a VM?
There is a lot of malware that can detect whether it is running inside a VM or sandboxed environment and if such environment is detected it can conceal it self and not execute. So why not make ...
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How to inject executable, malicious code into PDF, JPEG, MP3, etc.?
I wanted to know if its generally possible to inject executable code into files like PDFs or JPEGs etc., or must there be some kind of security hole in the application?
And if so, how would one do ...
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Why does one need a strong password on Unix?
SSH Server: I only allow public-key authentication.
Malicious Software: If it's running as my user it has access to my data and an internet connection, it's bad enough already. Yes, su access would ...
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Can USB drive infect my PC with malware if I don't allow any autorun.inf to run?
Assuming that I'm using a trusted USB flash drive (meaning that it's not some device that looks like a USB drive and whose purpose is to damage my PC), is it possible for my PC to get infected from ...
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Is making a clean install enough to remove potential malware?
Is formatting the disk and reinstalling the system from scratch (to Ubuntu) enough to remove any potential hidden software spyware, keyloggers etc.?
Or can something still persist installed in the ...
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How do I safely inspect a potentially malicious website?
Sometimes I'm interested in what's behind a malicious website. How do I stay on the safe side if I decide to inspect? I'm searching for methods that are quicker and more simple than running the ...
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How to scan a PDF for malware? [closed]
Can anyone suggest an automated tool to scan a PDF file to determine whether it might contain malware or other "bad stuff"? Or, alternatively, assigns a risk level to the PDF?
I would prefer a free ...
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Help! Ransomware encrypted my files. What do I do now?
I just discovered that my files have been encrypted by ransomware.
Can I get my files back? How?
Should I pay the ransom?
What should I do so that this never happens again?
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Mars Curiosity Rover Security
Does the software in the Mars Curiosity Rover have any security features built-in? I can't imagine how someone would hack into it, but if the rover does indeed have some protection against malicious ...
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Is it dangerous to call spam phone numbers, even if you know they're spammers?
I sometimes like to check spam just to see how the messages look like, and I found someone who actually put an American phone number (1-XXX-XXX-XXXX). Most of these spammers are either trying to get ...
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Does adding a password to BIOS prevent malware from infecting it?
I'm looking into ways of hardening a computer's security. One of the things is the BIOS.
Does adding a password to the BIOS prevent malware from infecting it?
I have seen this article: Protecting ...
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Can you get virus just by visiting a website in Chrome?
I've recently read Google Chrome: The End of Drive-By Downloads. Is it true to say that drive-by-downloads are history in Google Chrome?
So if I have a link (from a spam email) I can right-click >> ...
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Is it ever safe to open a suspicious HTML file (e.g. email attachment)?
If I receive an email that has an attachment called something like safe-link.html would it ever be safe to open this file?
Clearly, HTML files may have malicious scripts embedded that could run when ...
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Can the previewable option in file managers execute malware?
I am using Nemo file manager and I enabled the Previewable files option that shows video/photo files with their thumbnails:
I don't know exactly how files managers generate thumbnails, but I am ...
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What cryptographic flaw was exploited by Flame, to get its code signed by Microsoft?
Today, Microsoft released a security advisory warning that the "Flame" malware exploited a weakness in a cryptographic algorithm used by Microsoft Terminal Server Licensing Service, and was thereby ...
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Can cookies carry viruses?
I was wondering whether a cookie can carry a virus (or any security-threatening code). In some sense it is similar to a download.
So by simply visiting a site, could I get harmed?
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How is it possible to embed executable code in an image
I was reading up on FireEye and came across this NYTimes article detailing a Skype chat where an image was sent laden with malware:
Quote:
To gain access to information on the devices..., hackers ...
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Should one buy new hardware after a system compromise?
If there are places on a laptop malicious programs can leave elements, hooks, backdoors etc, in locations such as BIOS, device controllers, firmware etc - what confidence can one have in wiping the ...
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How secure is the Windows 8 included Anti Virus known as Windows Defender?
How secure is the new Windows 8 anti virus known as Windows Defender?
Does it have a protection against malware which uses UAC bypass/process injection/rootkits/process persistence/running the binary ...
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Accidentally came across the source code for some malware, what to do?
I accidentally, the other day, went to a dodgy site, and today I discovered that in my cache there lay a text file. And after reading the contents of the file, I have deduced that it is the source ...
user67447
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Are there actions taken against websites that deliver malware?
There are serious tools and services such as Google Safe Browsing for malicious and phishing websites, and others fully dedicated to phishing websites such as Phishing.org.
What is done against these ...
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