Some Important Facts to Know about Droppers

Featured article by Christopher Jenkins, Independent Technology Author

A dropper is a kind of malware created for launching viruses by dropping or installing them. Dropper viruses usually go unnoticed and undetected simply because they are tough to pinpoint, are hidden and relatively less common. Droppers are supposed to be relatively new kind of virus that a host of anti-virus programs are not suitably equipped to detect. Droppers are actually, programs containing viruses, which are known to hinder the normal functioning of the so-called targeted computers.

Droppers are able to install themselves quite easily onto a hard drive or a disk. They usually are not used to duplicate themselves, unlike worms. Instead, droppers are used to launching their payloads while veiling themselves within directories and computer systems. The dropper is known to contain the code of the virus. Mostly dropper viruses seem to be Trojans. The virus installs itself typically, in payload form that is the virus’s malicious activity.

Kinds of Droppers

Once you know the answer to the question ‘what is a dropper’, you need to know about the kinds of droppers. There are basically two major kinds of droppers. There are some droppers, which do not need user interaction that are known to perform via system exploitation by some kind of vulnerability. The other kind of droppers need user interaction and convinces the user about its legitimacy. A dropper that is known to install any malware program exclusively to memory is sometimes referred to as an injector.

Trojan-Dropper is supposed to be a kind of Trojan meant for delivering an enclosed payload to destination host computers. A dropper is considered to be the means toward an end and not the end itself. To be more precise, a dropper is generally used at the early stages or the very beginning of any malware attack.

How Do Droppers Infiltrate?

It very secretly infiltrates through diverse Internet sources. Here are a few common sources:

Social Media: If you browse through unsafe web pages, malicious websites, unauthentic web pages and phishing domain, there are major chances of encountering such creepy computer threats.

Drive by Download: This malware itself comes mostly bundled with unsafe programs, freeware software installers, and certain third-party application programs directly from risky and unsafe Internet sources.

Peer to Peer Sharing of Files: By sharing copyrighted content, infectious programs, malicious files, pornographic materials etc. via the Internet would be allowing malware threats such as droppers.

Opening Spam Email Attachments: Whenever you access spam emails or even download any suspicious attachments, there are chances of such malware bugs getting inside your PC.

Using Infected Removal Devices: By using infected external devices like CD, DVD, Pen Drive etc. you could be exposing your computer to harmful bugs such as Win32: Dropper-gen [Drp]. Be extra careful while using external devices.

Why Should You Remove Trojan Horses?

Droppers often are not immediately evident. However, they could still be causing your PC to really slow down, submit a trigger for stealing data, as soon as, it is gathered. Droppers are not really common, but just like the majority of computer viruses these too, are becoming pretty sophisticated for anti-malware programs to identify and detect them. You must get rid of them because they may cause chaos in your life as they would find and transmit your passwords to a host of applications including your email account.

Getting Rid of Them

It is pretty challenging to get rid of Trojan scripts from any computer manually. However, there are several innovative and cutting-edge anti-spyware programs, you have access to today. You need to maintain complete virus protection by regularly installing updates of reputed and reliable anti-virus software. You must consistently do research and consider the most effective and the latest anti-virus software, a premium malware & spyware elimination utility, which detects, removes and even safeguards your PC from numerous Trojans, spyware adware, spybots and other tracking threats.

Author Bio: Christopher Jenkins is a coder and a blogger currently settled in Pittsburgh. He is a data recovery specialist. If you are seeking an answer to the question ‘what is a dropper?’ it is a good idea to go through his blog posts.