One of their more popular uses is to deliver destructive viruses and malware. Ransomware is finally here for the Mac.
KeRanger was one of the first significant ransomware outbreaks for Macs. As its name implies, ransomware presents users with an ultimatum: pay a fee to unlock their computer or specific files to reclaim personal data. Software and hardware vulnerabilities can affect all devices, no matter their maker. You may have heard of a major vulnerability last year dubbed Meltdown and Spectre.
This was a particular form of malware that affected the processor chips of PCs and Macs. This included data like your passwords stored in a password manager or browser, emails, personal documents, photos, and instant messages. All of these types of information were vulnerable until the right software patches were installed. This could be a sign of adware. Signs may include unusual amounts of banner ads, or fake pop-ups that recommend updates to your computer.
This is a sign of a sluggish computer. That little wheel means that your Mac is working overtime, trying to do too many things at once. If your browser is unresponsive, or starts crashing regularly, you might have a virus. This is why installing strong antivirus software is crucial for Macs, as it can detect threats you may not be able to.
Antivirus software is kind of like insurance for your car or house. Adding an extra layer of device protection, like Norton Security Deluxe , is one way to help stay ahead of the curve.
All rights reserved. Firefox is a trademark of Mozilla Foundation. The answer is that you almost certainly can't simply by opening a message; you have to download and execute an attachment that's been infected with virus code. That's why most security pros are so insistent that you be very careful about executing email attachments, and why most email clients and webmail services include virus scanning features by default.
A particularly sneaky way that a virus can infect a computer is if the infected code runs as JavaScript inside a web browser and manages to exploit security holes to infect programs installed locally. Some email clients will execute HTML and JavaScript code embedded in email messages, so strictly speaking, opening such messages could infect your computer with a virus.
But most email clients and webmail services have built-in security features that would prevent this from happening, so this isn't an infection vector that should be one of your primary fears.
Symantec has a good breakdown on the various types of viruses you might encounter , categorized in different ways. We've already met resident and non-resident viruses , boot sector viruses , web scripting viruses , and so on. There are a couple other types you might want to be aware of:. Keep in mind that these category schemes are based on different aspects of a virus's behavior, and so a virus can fall into more than one category.
A resident virus could also be polymorphic, for instance. Antivirus software is the most widely known product in the category of malware protection products. CSO has compiled a list of the top antivirus software for Windows , Android , Linux and macOS , though keep in mind that antivirus isn't a be-all end-all solution.
When it comes to more advanced corporate networks, endpoint security offerings provide defense in depth against malware. They provide not only the signature-based malware detection that you expect from antivirus, but anti-spyware, personal firewall, application control and other styles of host intrusion prevention. Gartner offers a list of its top picks in this space , which include products from Cylance, CrowdStrike, and Carbon Black. One thing to keep in mind about viruses is that they generally exploit vulnerabilities in your operating system or application code in order to infect your systems and operate freely; if there are no holes to exploit, you can avoid infection even if you execute virus code.
To that end, you'll want to keep all your systems patched and updated, keeping an inventory of hardware so you know what you need to protect, and performing continuous vulnerability assessments on your infrastructure. How can you tell if a virus has slipped past your defenses? With some exceptions, like ransomware, viruses are not keen to alert you that they've compromised your computer.
Just as a biological virus wants to keep its host alive so it can continue to use it as a vehicle to reproduce and spread, so too does a computer virus attempt to do its damage in the background while your computer still limps along.
But there are ways to tell that you've been infected. Norton has a good list ; symptoms include:. If you suspect your computer has been infected, a computer virus scan is in order. There are plenty of free services to start you on your exploration: The Safety Detective has a rundown of the best.
Once a virus is installed on your computer, the process of removing it is similar to that of removing any other kind of malware — but that isn't easy. CSO has information on how to remove or otherwise recover from rootkits , ransomware , and cryptojacking. When they react to this state of affairs by maliciously setting out to harm anonymous strangers, however, I don't think I want to understand them beyond the minimum required to track them down and put a stop to their antisocial behavior.
Your mileage may vary, especially if you're a criminal psychologist. Some still do it for the "fun" of destruction. They may get a thrill out of reading news items about their work causing people trouble, or they may just take a fire-and-forget approach, creating destructive, self-replicating programs for the joy of it without much caring whether they ever see the consequences themselves.
Mostly, I'm sure they find it funny to read about people being inconvenienced by what they've done. In short, some people write mobile malicious code for the same reasons vandals break windows and spray paint garage doors that belong to people they don't even know.
I'm not talking about sabotage here; I'll address that later. By "espionage," I mean attempts to gather information through underhanded means for reasons other than identity fraud and other directly, criminally profitable purposes.
Viruses, worms, Trojans, and even backdoors and other malicious code slipped into your software by the vendor may serve the purposes of espionage.
Considering the fiasco of federal warrantless wiretapping violations of the law during the Bush administration's tenure, and the worse violations hinted at by several officials' carefully phrased testimony that such worse violations weren't a part of this particular program, it would be foolish to assume that government agencies never spy on people via software. It probably sounds like something out of a s vintage techno-thriller, like Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net , but it is disturbingly becoming a reality -- there are actual "gangs" of angry, or just plain ignorant, kids who engage in digital vandalism as part of a misdirected urge to enhance group identity and personal pride in a fractious, underground community.
Such groups may target each other or, more often, some third party whose troubles at the hands of such a gang of vandals will be easily noticed and identified. With dramatic names like "Team Holocaust" and "Phalcon SKISMs," such cybergangs may occasionally claim a higher purpose like YAM , but they may also have no pretensions of purpose other than claiming a strong group identity.
Like being a Denver Broncos fan, except they mark their territory with digital vandalism instead of by painting their torsos orange and waving giant foam fingers in the air. Keep in mind the difference between a hacker and a security cracker. People with a hacker mindset usually find themselves eventually drawn to specific fields of interest. In some cases, that interest might revolve around understanding self-replicating mobile malicious code.
Sometimes, the best way to understand something is to experiment with different ways to create examples of it. Sometimes, the best way to test something you've created is to see it operating under real world conditions. Some immoral or amoral hackers with an interest in self-replicating mobile malicious code may test their creations by releasing them into the wild and seeing how they do.
Most writers of malicious code in the wild these days seem to fall into this category; people who are in it for the filthy lucre. Viruses and worms often carry payloads that open up avenues of intrusion into a system, providing a means for either security crackers or their automated tools to slip past the system's defenses.
Such automated tools can harvest authentication information and other sensitive data such as for reasons of identity fraud , set themselves up as automated spam generators, or contact a centralized control mechanism of some sort, such as an IRC chat room to create a botnet of thousands, or even millions, of unwitting users' computers, all of which can be controlled simultaneously by a single security cracker.
It is increasingly common for botnets to be offered for rent, for any of a vast number of reasons. Sometimes, digital vandalism -- whether accomplished by a virus, a worm, a DDoS attack, or some other means -- can be accomplished for the purpose of making a statement. Whether the reason for something like that is directly political in the sense of addressing matters related to government or more indirectly political, such as interfering with certain types of Web sites and other operations of some class of people with whom one disagrees somehow, the point is sometimes to make people who aren't directly responsible for whatever's being targeted aware of one's own disapproval of those targets.
DDoS and other attacks against Microsoft or Yahoo! Depending on their specific choices of targets and their motivating issues, some such political agitators as in the case of those targeting and protesting Chinese and Australian national firewall policies might even be admirable for their principles and the courage of their convictions to some degree.
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