A supposedly legitimate French software firm, Tuto4PC, has actually infected an estimated 12 million PC users with a generic trojan disguised as downloadable utilities programs, according to an in-depth analysis from Cisco's Talos research division.
The so-called utilities software creates a backdoor on infected machines to automatically deliver payloads with spyware and adware capabilities, explained blog post authors and researchers Warren Mercer and Matthew Molyett. Moreover, it attempts to detect antivirus software, forensics tools, sandbox environments and other indicators that might block or analyze the malicious programs.
For the above reasons, Talos has blocked the software from its own corporate customers and reclassified the threat as the malware “Wizz,” named after WizzLabs, another business linked to Tuto4PC that shares much of the same infrastructure.
Read more 'Wizz' kids: Talos researchers pinpoint French firm as source of spyware-adware threat
The so-called utilities software creates a backdoor on infected machines to automatically deliver payloads with spyware and adware capabilities, explained blog post authors and researchers Warren Mercer and Matthew Molyett. Moreover, it attempts to detect antivirus software, forensics tools, sandbox environments and other indicators that might block or analyze the malicious programs.
For the above reasons, Talos has blocked the software from its own corporate customers and reclassified the threat as the malware “Wizz,” named after WizzLabs, another business linked to Tuto4PC that shares much of the same infrastructure.
Read more 'Wizz' kids: Talos researchers pinpoint French firm as source of spyware-adware threat
