Wiper is one of the most harmful computer viruses that we can find on the Internet. If the name does not sound familiar to you, surely due to some of its actions it does. Wiper was the virus that was loaded into the Sony Pictures Entertainment system. This puts our personal information, documents and any type of files that we have stored at risk. Its objective is none other than to erase the content that is in a memory or disk.
Users can create backups to save their files on external drives, for example. However, if that memory is infected by this type of malware, we could lose all the content. The same would happen if a pendrive or any other device is infected. The purpose of this threat is to eliminate everything in its path. This is not something new, since this problem has been with us for a long time. Of course, we have seen how it has been perfecting in recent years to not be detected and be even more harmful and that is a problem.
The first Wiper was so effective that it removed itself from the thousands of Iranian computers it had infected. In this way, it was not possible to find a single sample of the malware. Compared to other similar malicious programs, this threat was quite innovative, targeting a large number of machines at random; becoming a source of inspiration for future malicious samples.
For the same reason that this type of attack is so dangerous, common sense is essential. We have seen that these types of threats, as well as almost any other, often require user interaction. For example, clicking on a link, installing malicious software, opening an email attachment, etc. Ultimately, the hacker is going to need some kind of action from the victim.
Another good method like any other type of virus is to have a good antivirus that can detect and eliminate the malware that enters our devices. In this way we can prevent it from infecting us and carrying out its attacks for which it was designed.
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Satan – A computer hijacker virus
Main differences of Worm, Trojan and virus
