Malware

Overview

Malware or malicious software is one of the most significant categories of security threats to information systems. The whole purpose of malware is to damage or disrupt a system and thereby bring havoc to a business. Furthermore, it is a malicious program inserted into a system, usually through covert channels, with the intent of compromising the CIA of information systems. In other words, it is a software that intends to interfere with a computer’s normal functionalities. In addition, it infects systems and networks to gain unauthorized access to sensitive individuals and organizational information. Besides, it attacks an array of systems such as operating systems, applications, utilities, servers, websites, and so on areas. The malware has the capability of infiltrating devices without the consent and knowledge of their owners. Moreover, it aims to exploit the target systems and devices through malicious codes, scripts, active contents, and other software programs. Besides, these attacks lead to disruption of operations, loss of privacy, gaining unauthorized access to system resources and other abusive behaviors.

Characteristics of Malware Attacks

All malwares, regardless of its type, follow the same basic pattern of infecting devices and network resources. In other words, malwares require some actions from users likewise inadvertently downloading and installing it to their workstations and devices. Moreover, it is a software that attackers design to cause harm and disruptions to servers, systems, devices, or computer networks. Besides, malware self-replicates, propagates and infects targets through various means, depending on the specific goals it tries to achieve. Most malwares use a variety of methods to spread from one computer system to another. The most common techniques malwares spread include email attachments, file servers, file sharing, peer-to-peer (p2p) platforms, and more approaches. Moreover, malwares may spread through phishing links, malicious advertisements, fake software installations, infected USB drives and so on ways. These attacks may leak private information, grant unauthorized access to attackers, deprive valid users access to their information systems, and so on threats.

Signs of Malware Attacks

There are different approaches that help user to know whether their systems or devices have malware infections or not. The most prevalent signs or situations that may indicate the presence of malware attacks include:

• Slow computer and browser performance
• Browser redirects
• Infection warnings
• Unusual computer shutting-down or starting-up
• Pop-up Advertisements
• Changes in security settings
• Unusual emails
• Default search engine change
• New toolbars in web browser
• System instability, like program starts or ends without user involvement
• Strange computer behavior

Types of Malware

The malicious software or malware disrupts computer operations, gathers sensitive information, or gains access to private computer systems. Furthermore, it is one of the most nefarious cyberattacks nowadays and affects individuals and businesses of all size. There are tons of simple and complex malware types that can seriously damage host machines performance and stability. The most popular malware types, but not limited to, include the following:

Viruses

A virus is a self-replicating code capable of producing multiple copies of itself through attaching to other programs or files. And it is a type of malware that harms host computers through various operations. Furthermore, a virus is a malicious code that deletes files, occupies devices’ memory space, and slows down the computers performance. Besides, it may spread through email attachments, USB drives, multimedia contents and so on means after users download it. Unlike worms, vira do not activate themselves without human interventions or actions. Attackers create viruses to execute and unleash their malicious intent when it meets specific triggering events. Otherwise, it may remain in dormant mode for a predetermined time until it meets specified conditions to execute. Moreover, it works in a two-phase approach in which a virus self-replicates onto an executable file and attacks a target system. Meaning, viruses employ infection and attacking phases throughout its entire lifecycle. In addition, there are simple and advanced types of viruses capable of infecting systems via different techniques.

Worms

Worms are self-reliant programs that run independently and propagate a complete version of itself onto other hosts on networked environments. Moreover, it is a self-replicating and self-propagating malware capable of affecting memory spaces, network resources and systems. However, unlike vira, worms do not require human intervention to propagate from infected machines to other hosts in the network. It rather replicates and propagates itself to other programs through infected networks and file transfers without requiring triggering events. Additionally, it exploits vulnerable software and may use captured authorization credentials to exacerbate its attacks.

Trojan Horse

Trojan horse is a program that appears to have a useful functionality but carries a hidden and potentially malicious code. Furthermore, it is a malware that pretends to be useful software and entices users to install it on their machines. However, it unleashes its harmful actions after gaining foothold on victim’s machines.

Ransomware

A ransomware is a malware program that deprives valid users access to their system files and folders. Besides, it commonly achieves this denial of access by encrypting each files and folders until victims pay ransom. And it is a malware that encrypts entire disks or files of target system and demands money to decrypt it. Moreover, ransomware holds organizations and individuals hostage until the ultimatum expires and destroys possessed objects if victims fail to pay. However, if victims decide to pay the settlement, the attacker will share the decryption key on receiving the money. Additionally, attackers establish online payment systems, like bitcoin, to receive the ransom payment and avoid detection. The best remedy against ransomware attacks is to have reliable and latest backup systems. Because, even if companies pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that the attacker will not ask for more. Moreover, hackers may enlist companies that pay ransom easily and make it their frequent targets. Therefore, relying on robust backup systems saves companies bucks and reputations.

Spyware

Spyware is a type of malware that installs or runs in the target system with or without user permissions. Moreover, it collects information from a host and transmits it to another system by monitoring keystrokes, screen data and network traffic. Besides, it enables attackers to steal sensitive information from the target computer. The presence of the malware is difficult to detect and hence delicate to remove. Because, users do not usually notice the installation and deployment of spywares.

Logic Bomb

A logic bomb is malware that remains in a waiting state until the end of predetermined time or events before unleashing its malicious intent. In attack, intruders insert malicious code onto target systems and lies dormant until it meets predefined conditions. And this capability of staying in dormant state for a longer period makes it difficult to detect via antimalware.

Rootkits

Rootkits are set of hacking tools that attackers use to gain privileged or administrative access after compromising computer systems. Furthermore, it allows concealment of malicious programs to avoid detection and disinfections. The rootkits allow the concealment by modifying the host’s operating system so that the malware can hide itself from users. In addition, rootkits prevent malicious processes from being visible in the system’s list of processes.

Rabbit

Rabbits or Bacteria is a type of malware that consumes up all of the resources of a computer system. Moreover, it is malware that uses the entire message buffers, file spaces or process control blocks, and so on resources. However, these malwares are not significantly destructive by nature rather they merely replicate and consume valuable resources of computing.

Backdoor

Backdoor or trapdoor is a piece of code written into applications or operating systems to grant programmers access to resources. And this allows the attacker to gain access to target systems without going through the normal login and authentication processes. In short, it is a method of bypassing normal authentication procedures. In most cases, backdoors exist as a disguise of debugging or monitoring code that programmers develop.

Adware

Adware is a special type of malware that displays on users systems and computers without their knowledge and consent. Moreover, it either redirects a page to some advertising page or pops-up an additional page that promotes products or events. Adware is a type of malware that automatically delivers advertisements without taking the interest of the entity into consideration.

Keylogger

A Keylogger is malicious software or hardware that captures every keystrokes of entities on a compromised system. Moreover, it is program that monitors every activity of computer system users and gives hackers access to sensitive personal data. Furthermore, this enables attackers to capture usernames, passwords, bank account numbers, private message, and other sensitive information. In addition, hackers can easily install keyloggers, especially if there are outdated version of systems.

Botnets

It illustrates the use of a worm or Trojan horse malwares to establish a private communication infrastructure for malicious purposes. Moreover, the goal of the botnets will be to control a large number of computers to launch attacks on infrastructures. Besides, botnets install backdoors on each bots or zombie to achieve their goals. The individual computers in the botnets become zombies or bots and will be under total control of the botmaster. These types of malware attacks are applicable to launch DoS/DDoS and other nefarious attacks.

Malware Detection Methods

Traditional signature-based scanning methods are still the foundations of most malware detection and analysis techniques.

• Signature-Based Malware Detection: Uses the unique digital footprint or signature of software programs. These techniques identify signatures of software programs and compares it against known malware signatures to determine its harmfulness. Moreover, it is a systematic comparison of software programs signatures against established databases of malware digital footprints.
• Behavioral Method of Malware Detection: This detection technique monitors in real time the behavior of running piece of the software program in the target system. And it is sometimes known asheuristics-based malware detection. This detection category falls into two classes namely misuse detection and anomaly detection techniques. The misuse detection builds up a model of known patterns of systems misuses. Whereas the anomaly-based detection builds up a model of the normal behavior of the system and any patterns that deviates from the model will be classified as suspicious.

Malware Analysis

A malware analysis is the process of identifying and removing malware attacks and thereby minimizing its impact to infected systems. Malware analysis helps organizations to understand how a specific piece of malware works. This in turn help them to develop mechanism to protect against malware attacks. There are two types malware analysis, namely:

• Static Analysis: involves fragmentation of the resources of the binary files without executing it and simply studying each component of the malware. It makes use of source-code analysis tools such as IDA and OllyDbg to understand the structure of malwares.
• Dynamic Analysis: involves actually executing the malware on a separate host or VM and thereby carefully observing its attack behavior. This malware analysis should occur in simulated and sandboxed platforms to avoid leakage to other systems.
• Hybrid Analysis: involves the features of both the static and dynamic analysis techniques. This analysis type employs signature-based analysis first and then combines it with the dynamic analysis to deliver better results.

Malware Prevention Techniques

Since there are so many types of malwares, their prevention techniques varies and takes different directions as well. However, there are common protection methods that users can apply to minimize malware attacks. Some of the common measures include:

• Antimalware, firewalls, and authentication
• Up-to-date operating system and applications.
• Never click on a link in a pop-up
• Limit the number of applications on devices.
• Use a mobile security solution like mobile device management (MDM)
• Never leave devices unattended and frequent check their settings and the applications
• Avoid clicking on unknown links.
• Beware of emails requesting personal information
• Avoid risky websites, such as those offering free VM images
• Pay attention to downloads and other software purchases
• Purchase security software from a reputable companies via their official website
• Never open an email attachment unless you are sure with its authenticity

The best prevention mechanism against the malware attacks of any type will be delivering continuous security awareness training. Because, more than any other cyberattacks, malwares exploit the weakest link in an organization, which is its people. Therefore, working on security awareness raising programs goes a long way in safeguarding organizations and their data.