There are as many disadvantages as the advantages of increasing technology and science. Many countries misuse technology for hacking. In this list, the name of China comes in such top countries. Now such information has come to the fore, which may blow your senses. If you use VLC media player in your system, then your system is at risk of hacking.
According to CNN-News18, security experts have discovered that Cicada, a hacking group, is using the VLC media player to activate the malware loader on any system. The group also reportedly has support from the Chinese government.
The group has targeted at least three continents. It is believed that the hacking group is doing this for the purpose of some espionage operation. It has targeted political, legal and religious activities as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The airline’s website itself has been hacked if the bag changed in the journey, remove your complaint on your own
Cicada, also known as Menupas, Stone Panda, Potassium, APT10 and Red Apollo, has been active for more than 15 years. The organizations targeted in this hacking campaign appear to be government-linked as well as communications, law and pharmaceutical firms.
According to Symantec experts, the victims of the Cicada campaign are in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Turkey, Israel, Montenegro, Italy and India. Only one of the victims is from Japan, which has long been a target of the Cicada gang. Cicada has previously targeted the healthcare, defence, aerospace, finance, marine, biotechnology, energy and government sectors.
VLC media player becomes hacking tool
According to the researchers’ findings, Cicada’s current campaign began in the middle of last year and was still going strong in February 2022. This kind of action may continue in future also.
Apparently, there is evidence that the group infiltrated through Microsoft Exchange Server and accessed the network, implying that hackers took advantage of a paucity of unpatched devices.
This is how system hacks do
Symantec researchers found that after gaining access to the targeted PC, the attacker used the VLC media player to install a modified loader on the device.
According to Brigitte O’Gorman of the Symantec Threat Hunter team, the hackers used a clean version of VLC with a dynamic-link library (DLL) file containing a virus at the location of the player’s media export, the report said.
Malware can also collect all system information, trace running processes, and download and run payloads from command and control servers.