How Malware Can Be Hidden Inside a Trusted Program

Security is one of the sections that most users take into account when they run new programs downloaded from the internet. It is true that they have more and more experience and therefore take certain measures to avoid scares related to malware.

Likewise, we use certain applications that are very helpful in this type of protection task. The most common in this sense are the popular antivirus, programs that constantly protect us in the background. But once we know all this, it is also important to know that this is security programs are not 100% infallible. One of the main reasons for all this is that malicious actors are constantly developing new techniques and elements to access our equipment.

How Malware Can Be Hidden Inside a Trusted Program

In parallel, companies related to this type of security products try to update their projects to meet our needs . Among the many techniques used to fool antivirus software, program developers, and users themselves, is to embed malware in trustworthy programs. This generally means that we download this application, which is trustworthy in principle, run it on our computer, and we already have a problem. Once we have suffered an attack by this technique, sometimes we realize it right away, while other times it takes months.

All this is carried out through a code in principle hidden that can reach this fully trusted program in different ways. There is no doubt that over the years this has been a successful technique for attackers, which is why they continue to use them today.

Hide malware in trusted applications

Precisely for all this that we are commenting on is why we must take more precautions than ever when downloading from the internet. And it is that these violations of our security can reach our computer in different ways. On the one hand, we should bear in mind that malware sometimes reaches these trustworthy programs through attacks carried out on the servers of their developers .

proteccion descargas malware

With this, what attackers achieve is to infect the source from which users download that particular software. In this way they can infect thousands of computers in one go and also with the full confidence of those affected. On many occasions, the antivirus that we have installed on the computer will detect this hidden malicious code, but not always. Hence we have to pay special attention to the built-in functions of potentially suspicious software.

It may also be the case that certain websites offer us reliable programs a priori, but with hidden codes in their installer. Surely many of you have come across certain generalist pages that offer legitimate application downloads, but with their own adware included in said installer.

This is precisely one of the many reasons why, as we have mentioned so many times, it is advisable to download from the developer’s official website . In this way we almost make sure to download software without hidden code. At the same time we will have in the most recent and updated investment of that program.