Top 5 malicious internet Places which can hack your PC

Malicious Internet Places

Lot of people depend on the Internet for all their basic or complex needs which includes studies, entertainment, businesses, researches, shopping, etc. The benefits that you get are actually shadowed by the malicious attacks that arise from the Internet. Even if you secure your system with Antivirus programs, it is not enough to safeguard your system from virus affected malicious sites. Listed below are threats and some of the ways your system might get affected, so make a note of it.

Threat No. 1:  Malicious Flash Content Files

Origin: Sites having Flash Contents

Recently, Adobe Flash has been used by hackers to transport malicious viruses. Adobe has released several patches to provide more security. The Small bits of data that are stored in your PC when you access Flash content sites are called Flash Cookies that are used to store Flash settings. These Flash cookies can keep track of the sites that you browse. The worst part is, if you delete the cookies, only the normal cookies are deleted and the Flash cookies are not.

To avoid this, you will have to keep your browser plug-ins updated or set up the Flash Plug-in setting to notify you every time when it attempts to download Flash cookies.

2 Threat: Short URLs that targets you to malicious sites

Origin: Twitter

Twitter is a place for Hackers, as it revolves around URL Shorterners that would mask long URLs with brief URLs. So, it is really easy to hide a malware or Trojan horse behind the shortened URLs.

You can make use of Twitter Client Apps like Tweetie (Mac) or TweetDeck that has a preview function that shows you the complete URL before you click the shortened URL.

Bit.ly lets you to remove malicious URLs manually and tinyURL has preview services.

3 Threat: Email Attachment or scams that installs malwares or acquires confidential info

Origin: Email Inboxes

This attack has been there for ages and is always evolving. The spamming emails looks to be real and targets you to the malware sites, but it can be differentiated easily from the sender’s email address.

It is better to go directly to the main website itself rather than clicking on the attachment link on the email.

4 Threat: Malwares present on software or multimedia downloads

Origin: Files from Torrent related sites

Torrents sites allow you to download pirated multimedia files like music, video or software that might have malware content. Torrent is considered to be the best place for the hackers to send malwares through the torrent files, as there is no security provided by their torrent websites.

If You Have to Go There: It’s probably best to avoid torrent sites entirely, given their untrustworthy content, but if you must visit, use a secondary PC to protect your main system. Use antivirus software, and keep it up dated. Scan downloaded files and wait a couple of days be fore opening them. Brand-new malware can be tricky to catch, but the delay in opening may allow your antivirus software to get the necessary signatures.

It is best to avoid using torrent sites completely. If it is a must, use a computer other than you main PC and download the files. Scan the downloaded files using updated Antivirus and don’t execute them for the next 2 days. This gives your antivrus to catch hold of the malware contents.

5 Threat: Malware in videos or  image on porn sites

Origin: Porn content sites

Porn sites contain lot of malware contents, which will automatically gets downloaded to your PC. Porn sites take you to other porn related sites and leave you as a target for malware attacks.

If you have to view those porn sites, Make use of McAfee Site Advisor and Link Scanner to filter out malicious sites and have concern while downloading files like videos, images, etc.