The Malware tag covers malware families, infrastructure analysis, incident impact, disruption efforts, and defensive guidance to reduce cybersecurity risk.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Malware is software intentionally created or modified to perform unauthorized or harmful actions on a computer, device, or network. The term covers distinct families and functions, including viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, botnet clients, and ransomware; a single sample may combine several capabilities. Its behavior—not its label—determines the security concern: it may execute code, persist, alter or encrypt data, steal credentials, or provide unauthorized remote access.
For practitioners, malware reporting is most useful when it identifies the family or tool conservatively and provides evidence such as affected platforms, samples, infrastructure, or observed behavior. Defenses include promptly patching vulnerable software, restricting execution and privileges, monitoring endpoints and networks, maintaining tested backups, and isolating suspected systems for analysis. Detection should use behavior and verified indicators rather than names alone, since variants change. If malware processes personal or regulated data, investigations should also address privacy, evidence preservation, and applicable reporting obligations.
Malware Not Yet Deployed in the Wild, Says EsetNew malware dubbed HybridPetya spotted on VirusTotal is adding to steadily growing pile of bootkits, creating more opportunities for hackers to infect desktops before the operating system and antivirus programs load. No telemetry exists showing HybridPetya has been deployed in the wild.
Attacker Socially Engineered Developer With Phishing EmailA hacker laced 18 popular npm packages with cryptocurrency stealing malware after socially engineering the developer into giving up his credentials to the JavaScript runtime environment. Aikido Security said the 18 software packages collectively have downloads of more than two billion each week.
GhostRedirector Compromising Windows Servers in Brazil, Thailand and VietnamA suspected Chinese cybercrime group is deploying custom malware to compromise Windows servers in Brazil, Thailand, Portugal and Vietnam as part of search engine optimization fraud to promote gambling websites.