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| Malware seeps through web browsers |
| Kirtika Suneja / New Delhi Sep 10, 2009, 00:21 IST |
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Profit-driven cyber criminals are rapidly adopting web browser exploitation as a key factor in their attacks for malware installation.
One of the popular methods is drive-by download. In this method, the web browser initially navigates to a malicious page and downloads and executes a malware. A vulnerability in the browser may create a weakness in the computer security providing an opportunity for some sites to download the malicious code.
“Malware authors now want to target more than one browser in order to maximise the chances of success in case an infected user decided to change browsers. We have seen how a malware — which in that case was the Trojan — was designed to target three different browser platforms,” explained Shanatnu Ghosh, VP, India, Product Operations, Symantec.
Many "free" programmes downloaded from the Web may install a software that tracks a user’s behavior and displays unwanted advertisements. Rajiv Chadha, Vice President, VeriSign India explains that malware is injected into web pages accessible by the browsers on the web servers to infiltrate the computer. They don’t specifically spread because of the web browsers; however they use the vulnerabilities that exist in the web browser to infiltrate the computer.
Among the subtle effects are various screen display changes. In other cases, random icons might be displayed on the desktop. “Or, in the extreme case, the virus might even want you to play a game. There are many that will attempt to be very destructive to data attempt to overwrite the data on your computer," explained A Abhinav Karnwal, Product Marketing Manager APEC, Trend Micro.
So how can a user know when his web browser has been compromised? “Symptoms of malware infection are pop-up ads, general slowdown, or browser redirects to unwanted websites. Malware can disrupt the work or the normal operations of the system by causing a denial of service, corrupting data, taking up system resources and consuming network bandwidth,” said Karnwal. In addition, the computer may not shut down or restart.
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