On December 11, 2022: I read an article coming from the breaking news desk of komando.com. It is titled Before you download, check that file! These are the file types hackers love most. At the bottom of this article, we find Use this easy, free check to see if a site or file contains malware which goes hand in hand.
The second article was written October 5, 2022 and I thought I saw it and put it on EMHS itself, but I find I didn’t. The reason we’re adding it now and its importance is that we know that word documents, excel spreadsheets and applications such as executables are prone to have issues if it was sent maliciously.
The tool, linked on our EMHS page linked in our second article here is Virus Total.
| Virus Total | Virus Total is a service where you can send files and URL’s for analysis. The site will return any negitive results, telling you what might be a problem so you can be informed what you receive. For best results if using screen readers, the JRN recommends you use Chrome. |
The first article linked here talks about zip and rar files. I’ve received Rar files in recent times to my lists email address. They contained ransomware, according to Virus Total, and they all had something in common. They were trying to tell me that something was amis and they wanted me to view the file for more information!
I purposely saved all three files to my hard drive. I sent them all to Virus Total and all of them came back bad. My product, Malware Bites was one tool that was able to pick it up according to virus total, and I just deleted the files although I could’ve let Malware Bites pick them up.
| Malware Bytes | Malwarebytes is one of the most accessible pieces of software out there to protect you from malware and ransomware. The price is pretty reasonable and it seems to do a great job. They’ve been around for quite a number of years, and is recommended in the blind community. Their slogan on the home page in heading says: “CYBERSECURITY. FOR EVERY ONE.” |
This is not the time for us to be negligent and complacent on whether files are safe. If I can be hit and I don’t go looking for it, you can too.
Under “Here’s the backstory” heading, the article says:
Word documents, spreadsheets and text files are commonly used by hackers to inject malware into your devices. They send these malicious items through email or text messages. But a new Threat Intelligence report from HP Wolf Security suggests hackers have a new trick up their sleeves.
It continues:
Criminals are increasingly using archivable file types such as ZIP or RAR files. These formats commonly compress larger, legitimate files into smaller single files. To access the content, the file must be extracted.
That’s no problem. If it is apparently password protected, the actor gives us the password. And, the file comes encrypted, bypassing scanners, proxies and other tools that look for malicious signals.
There are legitimate reasons to send zip files such as email size limitations, protecting sensitive information or anything else you may want to use it for.
These file extensions have increased over 10 percent this past year, says the article. RAR files can be opened by Windows and it can be extracted with the extract tool of windows if you don’t have an unzipping tool like 7 zip.
There’s more to this article we link to first, and the accompanying linked articles, the first we link here too, may be of interest as well.
We continue to share this information because we want people to be as safe as possible. In this community, we know people need to learn, and we’re going to present the information here so you can do just that.
The link to the first article will be sent to the TSB list so people can read it there if they wish.
Please stay safe!
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