The IT Nerd

A reader of this blog e-mailed me this afternoon with this question:

Hello. I’ve been reading all about this Blackshades virus and in all the coverage that I’ve seen, nobody is talking about how to protect yourself from this. Could you help with that?

Thanks!

Thanks for the question. First off, Blackshades is not a virus. It’s a remote access Trojan that does the following:

• It targets Microsoft Windows-based operating systems
• It allows evil-doers to take control of your computer
• Evil-doers can then spy on you through your web camera, steal your files and any other information as well as see what you are typing.

What’s scary about this is that this Trojan is available on the open market for $40 and anyone can use it to do evil. Thus the arrests that were made globally in the last couple of days are the tip of the iceberg. There are likely many others who are using this Trojan that haven’t been touched.

Now, the real question is this: How do you protect yourself. The FBI has some tips that are specific to Blackshades that are very much worth reading, but protecting yourself from ever getting infected by this or any other piece of malware is simple:

• Install an anti-virus program and make sure it’s up to date and active.
• Never click on any links in e-mails that you receive that say things like “watch this video” or “check out this cool app” as those are prime ways for malware like this to infect you.

By doing those two simple things, your chances of encountering a piece of malware like this will be greatly reduced.

This entry was posted on May 20, 2014 at 6:14 pm and is filed under Tips with tags Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.