Data Protection from Malware & Viruses in Home Office By Antivirus Software

 Data Protection from Malware & Viruses in Home Office By Antivirus Software

 

Protection Tips from Malware

Today’s blog is interesting. You already know me and you know that I love to help you and make your life as easy as possible. Today I am going to teach you, easily and quickly, how to detect, avoid and eliminate viruses and malware.

The world of 'computer viruses' has also continued to evolve in recent years. This has ended up giving life to a new fauna that is becoming more extensive and dangerous.

What Is Malware?

Formerly called computer viruses, today they are more technically known as 'malware' (malicious software). This term is used to encompass all types of malicious program or code specifically designed to infect a computer and thus perform certain actions (harmful or fraudulent) for which it was programmed.

Types of Malware

There are different types of malware:

Adware / PUPs: Those annoying malware that fills us with advertising.

Rootkits: Elusive and sometimes difficult to remove.

Trojans: The most dangerous. They are famous for being "the thieves" who steal bank details, private and confidential information from companies or individuals, and so on.

Botnets: Creators of networks of PCs Zombies.

Rogues: Fake antivirus that fool thousands of people every year.

Ransomware / Crypto-Ransomware: They are the ones that currently sound the most due to the recent cases that you have seen in newspapers and digital magazines. They are hijackers of computers and their files that can only be released if the amount requested by their creator is paid. It is one of the most common types of extortion today.

For all these unpleasant creations of unfriendly people, we bring you this guide with tools and steps to follow to detect and eliminate practically 90% of all the 'malware' currently circulating on the net.

The Complete Family of Malwares

Within the generic name 'malware' we find specific malicious programs such as: Computer viruses, Trojans (Trojan horse), Banking Trojans, Ransomware, Worms ( Worm ), Hijackers, Badwares, Keyloggers, Backdoors, Fake Antivirus (Rogues) Scareware, Rootkits, bootkits, Adwares, Botnets, Spywares, Ransomware and Crypto-Ransomware.

Who Creates Malware and For What?

Today, the creation of 'malware' has evolved into an industry of organized crime (crimeware). Although it may surprise some, it is run by mafias. They are not mafias in the traditional sense of the word (although some mafias are already modernizing). They are groups specialized in all types of computer crimes (cybercriminals) that revert to significant economic benefits for their creators.

How Can My PC Get Infected?

Among the main routes of infection we can currently highlight:

• When installing any free program, without reading its options (PUPs / Adware).
• When you insert an infected USB device (Worms) into the computer.
• When you visit a website that is still legitimate, it has been infected -drive-by-download- (Ransomware).
• If you download fake drugs (hacks, activators, serial generators ...) from pirated programs or "gift" programs (Spyware / Trojans).
• Download a fake Adobe Flash Player or JAVA update to watch a video (Trojan / Botnet).
• By opening an attachment or following a link in an unsolicited email (Spam / Phishing).
• Follow an infected link from a known contact (who has also been affected) or wall on social networks, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.
• Visiting malicious pages to which we were directed by Google searches (BlackHatSEO).

What Would-Be the Symptoms that My Computer Is Infected by Malware?

Modern malware is getting stealthier and more elusive, and it's no longer just about wiping data on your hard drive. They can also take advantage of your system to turn your computer into a Zombie PC (Botnet). In this way, your PC will serve criminals to send spam, host malware, phishing sites, steal data, etc. This is why they will try to stay on your system for as long as possible without being detected by you or by security software like antivirus software.

In other cases they are already more noticeable when making modifications to our equipment such as:

• Change the home and search page of our browser and/or redirect Google results to other sites.
• Issue false alert messages or infections on our computer.
• Prevent the installation or execution of programs, as well as not letting the antivirus or other security programs update.
• Block security websites or forums that tell you how to remove threats.
• Total blocking of the entire computer (Ransomware) or even encrypting all the victim's files (Crypto-Ransomware) to ask for money and extort money to recover them and other things.
• Prevent the spread of malware by email.

You should know how to prevent the spread of email malware both on your computer and at work. Cyber-attacks have always been a problem for users. Their growing presence and sophistication affect both home and business computers.

Personal information, accounts or finances are some of the areas compromised by malicious software that comes from different routes. Here we explain how to avoid the spread of 'malware' by email, as it is the mechanism most used by cybercriminals due to its easy implementation.

Avoid Malware at Home

Ignorance and overconfidence is the weapons used by black hat hackers (crackers) to spread emails with malware. You must pay attention to each e-mail received and pay attention to some key points. First, it examines the subject (the title of the message) to determine if the text is in doubt, is in another language, or was written in an unknown one. In case the sender is a company, its name must match the email address that sends it.

Also, do not open the attachments if you do not recognize the extension, generally, XLSM and DOCM are used instead of the actual extensions XLSX (excel) and DOC or DOCX (Word) that correspond to Office documents to run encryption programs. The result is the loss of your documents and the request for a financial reward to recover them. It goes without saying that any personal data such as users or passwords should not be delivered under any circumstances, especially if it is banking information as you should already know.

Avoid Malware in The Enterprise

More and more people have email addresses for their companies. This is a situation that encourages the spread of threats. It is convenient to audit the documents shared with employees, those that are sent to clients and those that are received. Each worker must respect and follow cybersecurity protocols, as well as the preparation of a daily or weekly backup of documents in the appropriate cases and carry out eventual analyzes of the state of the system using antivirus.

Another applicable security measure is to restrict the type of documents that each department handles so that an infection does not reach all areas and can be contained. On the other hand, the daily use of the mobile phone (and more so if it is a business) puts the integrity of the company at risk. This is mainly because the type of malware is different on computers and mobiles. Most 'Smartphone' users do not have an antivirus installed on their device. A notable improvement would be to have an action protocol to check the company's emails from the mobile. It is currently one of the best security ideas you can take.