Book Image

Preventing Ransomware

By : Abhijit Mohanta, Mounir Hahad, Kumaraguru Velmurugan
Book Image

Preventing Ransomware

By: Abhijit Mohanta, Mounir Hahad, Kumaraguru Velmurugan

Overview of this book

<p><span id="description" class="sugar_field">Ransomware has turned out to be the most aggressive malware and has affected numerous organizations in the recent past. The current need is to have a defensive mechanism in place for workstations and servers under one organization.</span></p> <p><span class="sugar_field"><span id="description" class="sugar_field">This book starts by explaining the basics of malware, specifically ransomware. The book provides some quick tips on malware analysis and how you can identify different kinds of malware. We will also take a look at different types of ransomware, and how it reaches your system, spreads in your organization, and hijacks your computer. We will then move on to how the ransom is paid and the negative effects of doing so. You will learn how to respond quickly to ransomware attacks and how to protect yourself. The book gives a brief overview of the internals of security software and Windows features that can be helpful in ransomware prevention for administrators. You will also look at practical use cases in each stage of the ransomware phenomenon. The book talks in detail about the latest ransomware attacks involving WannaCry, Petya, and BadRabbit.</span></span></p> <p><span id="description" class="sugar_field">By the end of this book, you will have end-to-end knowledge of the trending malware in the tech industry at present.</span></p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

2. Microsoft Word macros


Microsoft Office is a widely used software throughout the world. Macros are an extremely old feature in Microsoft Office. A macro is a small program that can be embedded in an office document. It can be considered as a set of recorded commands that can be replayed again with a keyboard shortcut or click. This saves a lot of time and effort for people who work on Excel sheets, Word documents, and so on. The misuse of macros has also been going on for a long time. Earlier versions of Microsoft Office had macros enabled by default so opening a malicious macro document would immediately execute the malicious macro in it. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a programming language that can be used to create macros for Microsoft Excel. Macros can also be used to download malware. A Word document with malicious macros can be sent across a spam email to the victim. Locky ransomware can be downloaded using macros.

If you want to learn how to analyze malicious Word documents...