Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the increased popularity of the Zoom video conferencing service to distribute installers that come bundled with malware and adware .
Most people are at home these days due to the COVID-19 lockdown . As work and education cannot be left behind, many are turning to Zoom meetings to communicate with colleagues, etc.
Of course, the increased demand for Zoom has not gone unnoticed by hackers. The new "trend" is the distribution of installers with the aim of installing malware, such as Coinminers, Remote Access Trojans and adware.
TrendMicro reported that it discovered the distribution of a Zoom installer that installs a cryptocurrency miner on the computer .
“We found a Coinminer bundled with the legitimate Zoom app installer. This lures users who want to install the software, but end up downloading a malicious file. The malicious files do not come from the official Zoom download center but from fraudulent sites. We have worked with Zoom to ensure that it has properly informed users .”
Once installed, the malware will attempt to use your GPU and CPU to mine Monero cryptocurrency , which will cause your computer to slow down , potentially overheat , and damage your computer's hardware
Other Zoom installers take care of installing other unwanted software and Remote Access Trojans.
For example, the following Installer targets German users:
Another malicious Zoom Installer installs the njRAT Remote Access Trojan (also known as Bladabindi), which gives the attacker full access to the victim's computer.
This means the attacker can steal data, take screenshots with your camera, or execute commands to download and install other malicious programs.
Because most of this malware installs Zoom, users are unaware that other malicious applications have been installed on their computer at the same time.
To avoid such a situation, download the application from the official Zoom page.
Receiving from any other location significantly increases the chance of infection.
