{"id":1227,"date":"2017-09-18T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T03:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.blogs.yokogawa.de\/chemical-pharma\/uncategorized\/malware-disguised-as-a-trojan-horse\/"},"modified":"2022-06-17T09:28:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T07:28:06","slug":"malware-disguised-as-a-trojan-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/chemical-pharma\/en\/malware-disguised-as-a-trojan-horse\/","title":{"rendered":"Malware disguised as a Trojan horse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Infiltration of malware via removable media and external hardware<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Viruses and malware have a lot in common with the Trojan horse in Greek mythology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse and hid a select force of men inside. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. <\/em>The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war<\/em>.\u201d (<\/em>Wikipedia<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

In my blog the Trojan horse stands for removable media and external hardware. An USB stick, for instance, which can often be inserted into a PC or \u2013 far more serious \u2013 an engineering station at the heart of the automation technology at any time, rashly and without thinking. No-one checks whether only the data which is supposed to be copied the PC really does get copied. In the worst case, the USB stick could be infected with malware \u2013 the soldiers hidden inside the Trojan horse \u2013 and we all know what the outcome of that story was\u2026.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m getting at here is that every user who claims they \u201cjust want to import the presentation or load that little file\u201d needs to be fully aware of the consequences which \u201cjust\u201d doing something can have. That four-letter word \u201cjust\u201d doesn\u2019t automatically have to spell disaster, of course. But what if your USB stick has already been hit by a virus? Without you knowing? Or \u2013 an even more intimidating scenario \u2013 what if an attacker is attempting to introduce malware into your systems maliciously?<\/p>\n

Be alert<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to the BSI<\/a>, the German Federal Office for Information Security, the infiltration of malware ranks number 2 among the Top 10 threats.
\nIt comes second only to social engineering and phishing (BSI<\/a>); click here to read my blog post on this subject.<\/p>\n

It is vital for all employees to develop an awareness of, and an alertness to, the do\u2019s and don\u2019ts of removable media and external hardware. These rules should be embedded in the corporate culture and actively practised. One seemingly innocuous act of carelessness can have devastating effects. Once a malware has found its way onto your PC (and especially if your virus scanner fails to sound the alarm \u2013 in that case, you\u2019re facing an even bigger problem!), it will spread quickly throughout your enterprise network and you\u2019ll be forced to call in an expert to isolate and remove it.<\/p>\n

Take stock of the situation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Yokogawa offers various security services and preventive measures<\/a> to pre-empt this kind of \u201cTrojan war\u201d scenario.<\/p>\n