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The History of Phishing

Although the earliest forms of electronic mail trace back to 1965, e-mail was never intended to be secure. That is, however, because there was never anything to secure email from. The service of electronic mail lingered problem-free until the infancy of spam, and later, phishing. Today, 92% of malware is delivered via email; simultaneously, spam makes up over half of all emails. The underlying question is: how did phishing begin?

The Begining Of Spam

In 1978 Gary Thuerk sent the first spam email to 397 ARPANET users but this email was so unpopular that no one would send another like it for a decade. In 1988 players on a multi-user dungeon game began a “spamming” prank on their rivals where they would flood their accounts with junk email which in turn would crush their systems and prevent gameplay. This prank of spamming quickly became a serious security threat. Because the email was not designed to be secure if it was unable to combat malicious intent...for more info, go to = Toolbox.

First Recorded Mention

According to Internet records, the first time that the term “phishing” was used and recorded was on January 2, 1996. The mention occurred in a Usenet newsgroup called AOHell. It is fitting that it was made there too; America Online is where the first rumblings of what would become a major criminal issue would take place...go to - Phishing.org to know more.

The first phishing attack

In 1994–1995 AOL (America Online) was having a good time. They were one of the largest internet access providers and enjoyed a steadily growing user base. However, online security was more of a governmental thing and private businesses seldom invested in cybersecurity. A mistake that AOL learned the hard way by becoming the first victim of a phishing attack.

Sometime around 1994, a hacker called “Da Chronic” developed a windows application and named it “AOHell.” Among other features, it had the first-ever phishing toolkit “CC/PW Fisher” that exploited AOL’s direct messaging system. Furthermore, it was automated. A hacker was able to obtain personal credentials by sending a direct message to unsuspecting users:

“Hi, this is AOL customer service. We need to verify your account for security. Please, can you provide us with your username and password?”

Unsuspecting victims that had never encountered anything like this before willingly gave out their personal information and became the first to fall to the first phishing attack...more at - Hackernoon.

No one loved this virus

In 2000, The ILOVEYOU Virus was distributed, eventually infecting 45 million Windows-based PCs. Unsuspecting recipients opened an attachment to an email, unleashing a worm that overwrote image files and sent itself to all of a victim’s Outlook contacts.

The next year, the Sircam virus did significant damage to victims’ PCs. It had the ability to change email subjects and file names, making it harder to stop. The virus copied itself into an existing file on the user’s computer and sent itself to the victim’s email contacts, while a second file in the PC’s recycling bin would write text until the hard drive was filled.

Efforts emerge to blunt the attacks

In 2002, the European Union and the U.S. passed laws banning direct marketing emails without the prior consent of recipients. These have been largely ineffective. In addition, anti-spam security technology solutions were introduced in 2002. Even so, the number of spam emails exceeded legitimate email for the first time in 2003...visit - HealthDataManagement to know more.

Phishing has dominated the cybercrime industry and email is one of the best ways to deliver spam and malware. Along with user education, you will need good phishing protection technology and make sure that you are safe from phishing scams.

Courtesy of Avanan

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What is a Trojan Horse?

Now you know what a Trojan horse is, you’ve seen Trojan horse examples, and know what it can do and how to avoid an attack. An anti-phishing service with link click protection and malicious attachment blocking will help you keep your data safe and your computer free from all kinds of malware.A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be used by hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system.

Uses of a Trojan horse

When a Trojan horse becomes active, it puts sensitive user data at risk and can negatively impact performance. Once a Trojan has been transferred, it can:

give the attacker backdoor control over the computing device;

record keyboard strokes to steal the user's account data and browsing history;

download and install a virus or worm to exploit a vulnerability in another program;

install ransomware to encrypt the user's data and extort money for the decryption key;

activate the computing device's camera and recording capabilities;

turn the computer into a zombie computer that can be used to carry out click fraud schemes or illegal actions and

legally capture information relevant to a criminal investigation for law enforcement.

Read more - SearchSecurity.

Common types of Trojan malware, from A to Z

Here’s a look at some of the most common types of Trojan malware, including their names and what they do on your computer:

Backdoor Trojan

This Trojan can create a “backdoor” on your computer. It lets an attacker access your computer and control it. Your data can be downloaded by a third party and stolen. Or more malware can be uploaded to your device.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack Trojan

This Trojan performs DDoS attacks. The idea is to take down a network by flooding it with traffic. That traffic comes from your infected computer and others.

Downloader Trojan

This Trojan targets your already-infected computer. It downloads and installs new versions of malicious programs. These can include Trojans and adware.

Fake AV Trojan

This Trojan behaves like antivirus software, but demands money from you to detect and remove threats, whether they’re real or fake.

Game-thief Trojan

The losers here may be online gamers. This Trojan seeks to steal their account information.

Infostealer Trojan

As it sounds, this Trojan is after data on your infected computer.

Mailfinder Trojan

This Trojan seeks to steal the email addresses you’ve accumulated on your device.

Ransom Trojan

This Trojan seeks a ransom to undo damage it has done to your computer. This can include blocking your data or impairing your computer’s performance.

Remote Access Trojan

This Trojan can give an attacker full control over your computer via a remote network connection. Its uses include stealing your information or spying on you.

Rootkit Trojan

A rootkit aims to hide or obscure an object on your infected computer. The idea? To extend the time a malicious program runs on your device.

SMS Trojan

This type of Trojan infects your mobile device and can send and intercept text messages. Texts to premium-rate numbers can drive up your phone costs.

Trojan banker

This Trojan takes aim at your financial accounts. It’s designed to steal your account information for all the things you do online. That includes banking, credit card, and bill pay data.

Trojan IM

This Trojan targets instant messaging. It steals your logins and passwords on IM platforms.

That’s just a sample. There are a lot more...this and more on - Norton.

How You Can Get a Trojan

Unfortunately, getting a trojan virus is as simple as downloading the wrong application onto your computer or mobile device. Even if you never download software, it's still possible to inadvertently transfer one of these malicious applications to your computer.

If you take any of the following actions, you could make yourself vulnerable to a trojan attack.

Click on a link in an email that downloads an application to your computer.

Downloading "free" software from websites that you don't recognize.

Clicking on website pop-up ads.

Downloading files off the dark web.

Sharing or downloading Bittorrent files.

The bottom line is that any time you place a file onto your computer from a website or any other source that you don't recognize, you're putting your computer at risk for a trojan attack...to know more, visit - lifewire.

How to remove trojan malware

Once a Trojan is installed on your computer, the process of removing it is similar to that of removing any other kind of malware — but that isn't easy. CSO has information on how to remove or otherwise recover from rootkits, ransomware, and cryptojacking. We also have a guide to auditing your Windows registry to figure out how to move forward.

If you're looking for tools for cleansing your system, Tech Radar has a good roundup of free offerings, which contains some familiar names from the antivirus world along with newcomers like Malwarebytes...go to - CSO to know more.

Now you know what a Trojan horse is, you’ve seen Trojan horse examples, and know what it can do and how to avoid an attack. An anti-phishing service with link click protection and malicious attachment blocking will help you keep your data safe and your computer free from all kinds of malware.