Fireball (software)
Malware has the ability of running any code on victim computers, such as downloading an arbitrary file and hijacking and manipulating infected user's web traffic in order to generate advertisement revenue. It installs plugins and additional configurations to boost its advertisements, and has potential to turn into a distributor for any additional malware. Malware is spread mostly via bundling. It is installed on a victim's machine alongside a wanted program, often without the user’s consent. Digital marketing agency Rafotech has been indicated as producer of the software. The same company has been accused to host fake search engines, which redirect the queries to yahoo.com or google.com. The fake search engines include tracking pixels used to collect private information from users. Fireball manipulates the infected browsers and turn their default search engines and home pages into the above mentioned fake search engines, which enable the software to spy on users of the infected browsers.
Linux malware
The use of software repositories significantly reduces any threat of installation of malware, as the software repositories are checked by maintainers, who try to ensure that their repository is malware-free. Subsequently, to ensure safe distribution of the software, checksums are made available. These make it possible to reveal modified versions that may have been introduced by e.g. hijacking of communications using a man-in-the-middle attack or via a redirection attack such as ARP or DNS poisoning. Careful use of these digital signatures provides an additional line of defense, which limits the scope of attacks to include only the original authors, package and release maintainers and possibly others with suitable administrative access, depending on how the keys and checksums are handled.