The Menacing RATs
No matter how much you may love animals and birds, rats are such creatures who seldom win our affection.
We know them to be residents of the dirtiest places on the planet and relishing even dirtier things as their staple diet.
But, one cannot deny that there are two sides of a coin.
Hence, there are bad rats and good rats.
Amazed? Good rats? Why not? They are owned as pets, are known to be "pro-social" and intelligent too.
Ironically, we have a surprising similarity of good rats and bad rats in the IT world.
So, in terms of computer systems, what we call as good rats are Remote Access/ Administration Tools.
And the bad rats are called Remote Access/Administration Trojans.
The former are useful legitimate tools employed by administrators to remotely access the system of their clients.
On the other hand, when used for malicious purpose, these can be exploited by cyber-criminals to access and control the systems of their victims and launch illegal commands.
Basically, RATs are such type of malware programs which provide a backdoor to gain administrative control of the target computer.
Once the control is taken over, the author has access to files, network connections, registry, printer and many such components in a computer system.
With these components, they can maneuver the webcam enabling them to record video or audio clips and take screenshots.
Also, they can access web pages and steal passwords.
Moreover, these can also cause system failure.
A famous method of harassing the victims was to capture personal pictures or record audios and demand money against it.
Unfortunately, these RATs are not easy to detect.
They are usually disguised as legitimate programs or files and can enter the systems through internet downloads, file sharing or through emails.
They can also be introduced through PC games and can easily escape the scrutiny of firewalls and also antivirus programs which have not been updated regularly.
One chief preventive measure can be to keep the antivirus software up to date and scan all attachments in mails and other downloads.
Also, whenever a pop-up asks to save password for any website, one should always click "never.
" This will protect your passwords from being stolen even if a Trojan attacks your system, at least till the time you are able to find a method to remove it.
Trap the RAT or be trapped...
The choice is easy!
We know them to be residents of the dirtiest places on the planet and relishing even dirtier things as their staple diet.
But, one cannot deny that there are two sides of a coin.
Hence, there are bad rats and good rats.
Amazed? Good rats? Why not? They are owned as pets, are known to be "pro-social" and intelligent too.
Ironically, we have a surprising similarity of good rats and bad rats in the IT world.
So, in terms of computer systems, what we call as good rats are Remote Access/ Administration Tools.
And the bad rats are called Remote Access/Administration Trojans.
The former are useful legitimate tools employed by administrators to remotely access the system of their clients.
On the other hand, when used for malicious purpose, these can be exploited by cyber-criminals to access and control the systems of their victims and launch illegal commands.
Basically, RATs are such type of malware programs which provide a backdoor to gain administrative control of the target computer.
Once the control is taken over, the author has access to files, network connections, registry, printer and many such components in a computer system.
With these components, they can maneuver the webcam enabling them to record video or audio clips and take screenshots.
Also, they can access web pages and steal passwords.
Moreover, these can also cause system failure.
A famous method of harassing the victims was to capture personal pictures or record audios and demand money against it.
Unfortunately, these RATs are not easy to detect.
They are usually disguised as legitimate programs or files and can enter the systems through internet downloads, file sharing or through emails.
They can also be introduced through PC games and can easily escape the scrutiny of firewalls and also antivirus programs which have not been updated regularly.
One chief preventive measure can be to keep the antivirus software up to date and scan all attachments in mails and other downloads.
Also, whenever a pop-up asks to save password for any website, one should always click "never.
" This will protect your passwords from being stolen even if a Trojan attacks your system, at least till the time you are able to find a method to remove it.
Trap the RAT or be trapped...
The choice is easy!