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.
RapperBot's initial infection tactic is one example of the different methods attackers are using to distribute malware.
A novel credential harvester compromises SMTP services to steal data from a range of hosted services and providers, and can also launch SMS-based spam attacks against devices using US mobile carriers.
Hackers can compromise public charging hubs to steal data, install malware on phones, and more, threatening individuals and businesses alike.
Malware-as-a-service hackers from Spain decided to use a public code repository to openly advertise their wares.