Malicious Payload

What is Malicious Payload?

In simple terms, a malicious payload is part of the attack that causes harm to the victim. Dating back to the Greek soldiers who used to hide underneath the Trojan horse to attack when needed, similarly, is the case with a malicious payload. These payloads sit harmlessly until they are triggered.

Attacking methods such as worms, viruses, and malware all contain malware payload. These malicious payloads can be found within email attachments, hyperlinks, and other forms of the transmission mediums. Symantec has quoted that one in every 359 emails contains a malicious payload, and this ratio tends to increase.

How do malicious payloads harm their victims?

Some examples of how theses payloads can be used for cyber-attacks and the harm they can bring to users are stated below:

1. Data theft: The most common threat being the theft of highly sensitive data, mainly your credentials of financial transaction information through data breaches.
2. Activity Monitoring: An injected payload virus may serve to monitor your actions on a computer system. This can be solely done for blackmailing, spying, or note consumer behavior that can be later sold on to organizations.
3. Displaying advertisements: Some malicious data payload attacks work to display regular, unnecessary ads such as pop-ups and other forms of adware that can be frustrating for users, rendering their system useless to use.
4. Deleting or modifying files: Malicious attack done by these payloads can lead to altering your data on your computer system, which is one of the most significant consequences to arise from a malicious payload. These files can be modified, deleted, or even harm the system to the extent of not letting your operating system work to its full potential. For instance, some malicious attacks are designed to tweak your smartphone, meaning they can get stuck into a boot loop, from which fixing it becomes quite a hassle.
5. Downloading new files: Some malicious payloads come in small and lightweight file sizes that can quickly be disseminated to a broader public, but once the payload is executed the downloaded file can turn out to be a large chunk of malicious virus.
6. Running background processes: A malicious payload can also sneak behind your background processes without you being aware of, for instance, payloads can be installed to mine crypto-currency or data storage.

How are Malicious Payloads executed?

Attackers must find a way to deliver the malicious DDoS payload on to the victim PC. Social engineering attacks and DNS hijacking are two main ways to transmit the payload virus to users. Once a payload sits behind your system, it is likely to stay dormant until it is triggered. Attackers can choose from several ways to execute the payload and compromise a system’s security. Some common ways to execute a payload are as follows.

• Launching an executable file: For instance, a victim downloads an installation setup file from any website that they believe is some pirated software, but when they run the file for installation, it turns out to be malicious and hence, has an infected payload into their system.
• Specific set of behavioral conditions: This technique works through implementing some logical conditions. For instance, an employee might plant a logical bomb into his firm’s network with the state that when he is off from payroll, then it will execute the malicious payload. So some certain conditions must be met before such payloads can access the network.
• Launching specific non-executable files: Even some non-executable files can contain a payload underneath it. For instance, an image file under the .png extension can have a payload hidden inside it, so when launched, the payload will be executed.

How to stop malicious payloads?

By far, you must now know what is payload and how it can crawl into your system. However, it is imperative to get rid of these malicious payloads since its competent enough to compromise your system to the extent that can leave you stranded and not getting your work done on time.

However, there are so many methods and techniques for the distribution and execution of these payloads, and there is no specific solution to mitigate them.

In addition to being aware of phishing scams and other social engineering and magnifying attacks, security countermeasures should be undertaken whenever downloading files or receiving any data over the air. One of the best ways that users can prevent any attack launching into their system is to install reliable and genuine anti-virus software on their PC and run routinely scans on your file system.

Secondly, users need to ensure of not exposing or transmitting their sensitive data on their network connection because it becomes an open gateway for attackers to compromise your network security.