MALWARE HISTORY - EXPLOITS

Remote attackers are thus able to run malware directly on the target computer. The most recently discovered vulnerability was documented by the Bitdefender analysts as affecting the popular browser from Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7 (BitDefender Issues Signature Update to Protect Users from New Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Printing Vulnerability ). Exploits take advantage of software design flaws in order to trigger unexpected behaviors in the software running on the target computer. Exploits usually allow attackers to either gaining control of a computer system through privilege escalations or to perform denial-of-service attacks.Although many exploits are especially designed to grant attackers administrator / root privileges, multiple exploits can also be used to repeatedly escalate from user-level to superadministrator. 

 

Software vendors usually patch their products as soon as vulnerabilities are detected, before the exploit code gets into the wrong hands. However, many attackers keep such vulnerabilities private and use them for malicious purposes, rather than announcing the vendor. Newly-discovered vulnerabilities are also known as “zero day exploits” and sell for thousands of dollars on the black market. An interview carried by tech website Security Focus unveils that exploitable vulnerabilities can sell for as much as $10,000. However, the damage inflicted to users can not be even closely estimated.

 

 

Exploits usually affect systems running Microsoft Windows operating systems, but there have been attempts to install undocumented backdoors in the Linux kernel itself. With only two lines of code, a remote attacker could gain root privileges on the system .