In order to save money or have no budget to buy genuine software, many people will use “activation tools”, which are simply pirated software. The most common ones are Windows 10 and Office series. However, you must be careful when using such activation tools. Recently, there have been reports in China that a large number of netizens used activation tools, resulting in the homepage being kidnapped. China’s well-known Tinder Security also found that these tools contain a virus called “Spicy Hot Pot”.
According to Tinder Security’s report, a large number of users reported on the forum that after they used Baofeng activation, KMS and Pony activation tools provided by an activation tool website, their computer’s browser homepage was hijacked by the URL http://**?.****111.top” (* is a number):
After analysis by Huorong security engineers, they found that these activation tools contain the Mala Xiangguo virus, which not only kidnaps the browser homepage, but also collects blue screen information, thereby occupying the user’s computer for a long time. Users will also be prohibited from changing the homepage back, or even bypassing anti-virus software checks.
This type of activation tool is usually judged to be a virus by anti-virus software, so users are advised to close it before using it to avoid misjudgment. This time, these used by Chinese users are no exception:
The following figure is a flow chart of malicious virus behavior compiled by FireWire Security:
Although very few Taiwanese users will go to Chinese websites to download activation tools, basically 90% of these pirated tools provided by most Taiwanese forums come from China, so be careful.
But to be honest, there is really no need to use pirated software now. Many software are not as expensive as before. It is really recommended to invest directly in buying genuine software. There is no need to expose your computer to danger just to save this little money.
It’s okay that this time it just kidnapped the homepage. At least there is a way to solve it, but next time if it is a strangle virus, it will be troublesome. Your files will be encrypted. Unless a decryption tool will be released soon, otherwise you will have to pay a ransom to unlock it.
In any case, we also recommend that your computer must install anti-virus software. If you are worried about whether it will affect performance,This article has actual test data。
https://www.kocpc.com.tw/archives/320077
Source: KOCPC Chinese