Greg's Corner

New malware doesn’t even need you to click on a link

Another week and another new type of malware comes out, this one even has a new trick to it. Normally, when your computer gets infected by malware you have to open an attachment or click on a link. With this new type of attack, you don’t even have to do that. All you have to do is hover your mouse over the link and it could infect your computer.

This particular attack exploits a flaw in an unpatched version of PowerPoint. Usually, PowerPoint will warn you that something is attempting to download itself to your computer. However, it’s pretty easy to accidentally bypass the warning, allowing the malware to infect your computer. This attack is said to download a type if malware known as both Zusy and Tinba. The malware is designed to copy any financial information you may input while you’re on the internet such as account or card numbers.

The fact that you don’t even have to actively click on anything to get infected shows that the war with malware has reached a new level. As we’ve previously mentioned the best defense is not to click on unsolicited links or attachments. With this new type of attack the best thing to do would probably be not to even open emails from unknown entities.