As far as viruses, worms and other nasty threats go, there aren’t many as frustrating and as difficult to find as Poweliks. While most security threats can wreak havoc on your computer system, and can cause prolonged downtime due to data losses and information leaks, the majority of viruses can be traced back to an encrypted file or infected software which enables them to be detected and ultimately removed.
While this is the case for most threats, Poweliks is able to hide away in your system and is almost impossible to track.
What is Poweliks?
According to Symantec, Trojan.Poweliks is a Trojan horse that installs as a fileless threat which performs malicious activities on your infected computer. Unlike traditional Trojan horse viruses which infect your computer with files, Poweliks is able to hide away in the memory registry of your system.
Poweliks has the ability to hijack legitimate applications running on your network through storing its code within registry entities which allows it to remain present on a computer but not have any file stored directly onto the computer file system.
How can you protect your systems?
In order to reduce the chance of a virus or threat infecting your system, ensure you regularly conduct anti-virus updates. While anti-virus is likely to only have a limited impact on Poweliks threats, there are now an increasing number of removal guides surfacing online. Furthermore, anti-virus firms are regularly updating their software in order to combat such malicious threats.
In conjunction with regular anti-virus updates, you should also maintain a strong level of awareness of any suspicious looking files or material. One method reported to have been responsible for the distribution of the Poweliks infection, was via Microsoft Word attachments in spam emails. Most of the emails which included these harmful attachments were posing as reputable companies.
Due to the frequency of phishing emails, ensure you check the sender address, grammar of email content and the likelihood of the institution sending you an email. It is necessary that you take the above precautions into consideration before you open any attachments or click on any links that you may suspect contain harmful material.
If you would like to know more about the Poweliks infection, or are worried that your computer may be infected, call Synapse IT today on 1300 903 405.
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