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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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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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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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 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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Is there a real possibility of getting malware by “drive-by”?
I know malware can be gotten by downloading and running stuff, but is there a real possibility of just viewing a webpage or clicking a link and getting one?
Assuming using only Firefox / Chrome and ...
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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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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?
user11101
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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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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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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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What are ways I can analyze malware in an infected machine, not just clean it?
I often run into infected devices in my environment and would like to learn more about the specific infections that have gotten in. What are the best tools and techniques I could use to do this? I ...
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Can malware be transmitted via a USB charger plugged into a wall socket?
I have a smart phone that I often plug into a wall socket for charging via a small adapter that rectifies the AC to DC power and transforms the voltage from line (120V or 240V) to 5 V DC, probably ...
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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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Can malware be dangerous even when quarantined?
I am reading a book on network security and when talking about user confusion it writes:
"It is not uncommon for a user to be asked security questions such as
Is it safe to quarantine this ...
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How do I safely inspect a suspicious email attachment?
I received a pretty blatantly spammy email to my Gmail account. Attached to the email is a supposed HTML file. My first hunch was that it was probably one of the following:
A nasty executable file ...
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Finding a specific malware sample for malware analysis purposes
I wish to analyze the changes made by a specific virus. For example, Win32.Sality.
Where can I get the sample of this, or other similar, malware for testing?
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What does this malicious PHP script do? [closed]
Somebody hacked my site and uploaded this script (template46.php) to my webroot and its content is:
<?php
$vIIJ30Y = Array('1'=>'F', '0'=>'j', '3'=>'s', '2'=>'l', '5'=>'M', '4'=>'...
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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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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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Best practices for handling computer viruses
I realize this question may be quite broad (and hopefully not a violation of the FAQs), but I'm interested in hearing how many of you handle a computer infected with Malware.
In a small-to-medium ...
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Is it safe to use virtual machines when examining malware?
We want to study for the CEH program and have downloaded 12 DVDs that 6 DVDs are software key-loggers, Trojans, etc. that are all detected by antivirus. This prevents us from examining them and ...
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How is a worm different from a virus?
In spite of various online articles, I'm a bit unclear on the distinction between a "worm" and a "virus".
Two related questions--
Is there a useful and clear distinction here or no? If so, what is ...
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Difference between virus and trojan?
To my current understanding:
A virus is a program that does not self replicate and relies on the host file being spread. It has malicious intent.
A trojan is a program that is run by deceiving the ...
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Unambiguous terminology for different kinds of malware?
I noticed in the literatures that there are no exact boundaries for numerous information security terms such as malware, virus, etc. Some people say malware i the umbrella under which viruses, worms, ...
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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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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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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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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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What are the security implications of people downloading addons, wrongly thinking that they are safe?
I recently learned about a plugin for Firefox called Fire Sheep, which was featured on the Security Now podcast. I downloaded F.S. and began examining it. To my surprise it includes C++ code that must ...
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Methods of mitigating threats from keyloggers
I am concerned about keyloggers being installed on my system and transmitting sensitive data out of our network.
Is there a common method that such malware uses to send its collection back to the ...
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Router being infected by malware
If you connect a computer that is infected with malware (the government grade, kernel infecting, extremely persistent, easily spreadable kind) to a router or modem, can the router or modem or its ...
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Kaspersky Antivirus "secure connection scan" as broken as Superfish?
I've read a lot about Superfish (and similar ad-ware) lately and I basically understand the vulnerability to MITM attacks. But I'm actually wondering if the "secure connection scan" by Kaspersky ...
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Why should I restrict the content type of files be uploaded to my site?
We are building an application where users can upload resumes in our system for our administrators to download. We are having a debate about restricting the content type of the files that can be ...
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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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Malware that can survive BIOS re-flashing
The well-respected security consultant Dragos Ruiu is reporting that he has been infected with mysterious malware that can survive re-installation of the OS and re-flashing of the OS. In other words, ...
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Which security measures does PyPI and similar third-party software repositories take?
PyPI is a third-party software repository for Python packages. Everybody can upload packages to it (see The Python Package Index (PyPI)).
How does PyPI prevent people from uploading malware?
When I ...
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Malwares source repositories. Where? [closed]
As the best way to learn is to read the code, do you know where I can find malware/virus/whatever source code to read?
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Do the most common ransomware programs delete the original files as they go, or in a big bulk delete at the very end?
I'm talking about the most common varieties like Cryptolocker, Cryptowall, Torrentlocker, KeRanger, RSA4096, etc. (There is not necessarily a need to answer for all of these, one or two may do.) If ...
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Unknown malware, how to report it and whom to report it to?
I'm a professional Windows system administrator, but I've been caught off-guard (or maybe some malware writer has been very clever) and I caught some unknown malware on my home computer (Windows 7 x64 ...
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Can a guest virtual machine be compromised by a virus on the host machine?
All questions ask about the other way round, ie. can a virtual machine compromise the host. But I'm asking can a virus on the host machine compromise the guest virtual machine?
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Detecting malware-infected USB drives
I'm about to distribute some relatively cheap promotional usb drives to some of my company's clients. I'm fairly confident the company I purchased them from wouldn't intentionally implant malware on ...
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Drive-by downloads
I am aware of the problem of drive-by downloads, which happens when one visits a malicious site and a malware is downloaded to the PC. I want to ask that when such a program is downloaded, how does it ...
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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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Are official browser add-ons really safe?
Almost any browser addon/extension that I install on my Chrome or Firefox (be it Firebug, RESTClient, ...) warns me, saying:
It [the add-on] can:
Access your data on all website
Access ...
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How can I safely check whether an email link leads to a malicious website?
Over the last few weeks, I've gotten several spam emails from different friends that only contained links to different websites.
I would like to click on those links and see what's on the website. ...
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Can BIOS malware be installed from OS?
Can an OS vulnerability be exploited to install BIOS/UEFI/firmware malware (such as a keylogger)? I know BIOS is a "deeper" level than the OS. I know firmware based keyloggers exist. I know they can ...
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Is it possible for a phone to be transmitting even while turned off and the battery removed?
Is it technically or theoretically possible for any part of a mobile phone's circuitry to be still on and transmitting even while turned off and the battery has been removed? If so, how?
I am ...
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