Malicious Codes: How to Detect, Prevent, and Eliminate Them | Antivirus

When programming experts use their coveted knowledge for crime, malicious code is born. We tell you everything you need to know to be forewarned!

Technology has changed the world dramatically and no one can deny it. Few remember what life was like without a cell phone, without means of instant communication, without online files for data storage, without home banking, without Wi-Fi. But, all these comforts of today's life also have certain risks, such as malicious code, that we have to know so as not to be easy victims.

It is not that technology is bad, the problem is that criminals evolve along with the rest of economic activities and, therefore, companies have a greater demand to be at the forefront and beat cybercriminals.

As the name implies, malicious codes are pieces of web script developed to create vulnerabilities in systems. In a crude analogy, we could say that it is as if someone made a hole in the perimeter fence of your software to take the information, files and even boycott the operation of your equipment.

Unlike other computer attacks that a system can suffer, the malicious code includes website scripts that take advantage of vulnerabilities to load malware through new entry doors, many times an updated antivirus is not enough to stop its action, it is essential to perform specialized scans and leave systems development in the hands of trained professionals.

How Does Malicious Code Work on My Computer?

The malicious code is a self - executable application that produces gateways to information from a computer with different costumes that can be Java applets, solutions HTML, accessories, scripting languages, and other languages predesigned web pages or emails.

Downloading the code gives the cybercriminal access to the victim's computer and allows sensitive data to be exposed. In this way, cybercriminals can even delete valuable and irrecoverable information, as well as install spyware.

Visiting infected websites or clicking a malicious email link or attachment are the primary avenues for malicious code to penetrate systems.

How Can Malicious Code Be Detected?

The renowned international domain and web hosting provider, Godaddy, offers the following recommendations so that users can know if they are being threatened by malicious code :

• Review the malicious code inventoried on the Stop Badware and antiphishing.org log pages, to know the most well-known cases and to be alert.
• Take into account safe browsing certifications when browsing different websites
• Enable the view of file extensions, and scan all files with extensions such as .exe, .bat, .cmd, .scr, or .pif through an antivirus software.
• Use link analysis software to scan all links in your own code, especially in advertisements.
• Search for possible virtually invisible frames, in general, harmful scripts are placed in the code with iframe tags with height = "0" width = "0".
• Search your own code with the search for unknown lines. It is very common for malicious code to be encoded with hexadecimal or Unicode / wide character. Look for strips of percent signs (%) followed by two characters (eg% ww% xx% yy) and/or lines followed by 4 characters (like \ u9900 \ u1212 \ u8879).
• Download the files from the website into a virtual machine where you can scan them and avoid infecting the computer itself.

How Can I Prevent Malicious Code in My Business System?

As always, in terms of computer security, prevention is vital to avoid serious problems resulting from the criminal attack. The main tool to avoid being a victim of malicious codes is website protection scanners.

Through periodic scans of your website, you will be able to detect vulnerabilities to correct them and not be easy prey for hackers.

In addition, it is important to:

• Review all software before including it in your systems
• Evaluate the use of web security certificates for your site
• Include ad providers that do not contain malicious code and scan them regularly.
• Give greater vigilance to areas of your company's software that are available for user-dependent data generation.
• Implement high-security passwords.
• Install the latest versions of the patches available for third-party software on the site.

How Do I Remove Malicious Code?

In case of detecting the attack of a malicious code in your business software, it is necessary to follow the following action guidelines:

• Put the site down to avoid the spread of cybercrime and that your customers and visitors are not at risk.
• Remove all malicious code that you have detected through scans and script reading.
• Repair the vulnerabilities for which you believe the malicious code has entered, to prevent future attacks.
• Conduct an investigation of the case and possible spread of the cyber attack to determine the scope and alert other potential victims.

People who invest time and energy to get hold of other people's resources have always existed in the history of humanity, and the best option that remains for us to respond to the development of new forms of crime is information and prevention.