#PC HACKING WALLAPER CODE#
That’s assuming there’s an unpatched vulnerability in one of your apps, or in Windows itself, that can be reliably exploited to trick your computer into running a fragment of executable code when a deliberately crafted image file is opened. (No, we don’t know what the text MTSM=DABJDKT in the last line means or what it’s for we just know that Microsoft insists that you have it in the file and says, “You do not have a choice of values for this parameter.”)Īdmittedly, just loading untrusted image files, such as the Wallpaper file specified above, can theoretically be dangerous. Path=%SystemRoot%\resources\themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles Wallpaper=C:\Users\duck\Pictures\justatest.png Here’s a simple example, a copy of the file justatest.theme depicted above: Very loosely speaking, Windows Themes are just INI-style text files that specify various settings for background colours, wallpapers, and visual effects. theme files bundled together), you’ve not worried too much about security. themepack files, which are just a collection of. We’re willing to bet that if you’ve ever downloaded and used.
#PC HACKING WALLAPER SERIES#
theme, denoted by icons that depict what look like a series of background images. Who knew?)Īt right hand side of the images above, you’ll see files with the extension. (Apparently that icon doesn’t represent a scroll. Windows will automatically run them as all-powerful JavaScript programs – not in the comparative safety of your web browser, but directly on your computer as local apps. js files, and if you double click on them thinking you are about to open them up to view their contents, then you will get an unpleasant surprise. Indeed, if we turn on the View > File name extensions option (highly recomended!) in File Explorer, you’ll see the dangerous truth behind those “scroll icon” files that looked above as though they were called alert and alert.txt: Yet the operating system rather patronisingly assumes that you don’t need to bother yourself with those pesky extra letters at the end of your filenames.
#PC HACKING WALLAPER .EXE#
exe at the end of the program Notepad.exe.Īnnoyingly, Windows itself very often uses extensions to decide what to do when you click on a file – for example, whether to view it harmlessly or to execute it riskily.
docx at the end of the Word file TaxReturn.docx or the. Ironically, however, the icon in the middle that looks like a crisply modern digital document, and that goes with a file that’s actually called document, really is a text file.īy default, Windows suppresses filename extensions, which are the all-important characters that follow the last dot in a filename, such as the. We’ve even taught ourelves to be wary of the extent to which Windows itself misleads us because of its default approach to filenames – as in the case of the files alert and alert.txt below, which go out of their way to convince us they’re just innocent text:įorget what they look like: those old-school icons on the left that give the impression of being medieval scrolls don’t denote plain old written text at all. We’re also aware of a range of risky script files such as JS (for JavaScript), VBS (Visual Basic Script), PS1 (Powershell) and many others that are plain old text files to the untrained eye, but are treated as a series of system commands when processed by Windows itself. We’ve learned to be wary of DOCs and DOCXs and all the other Office filetypes, too, because they can include embedded programs called macros. Most of us also know to be wary of DLLs, which are actually just a special type of EXE file with a different extension to denote that they’re usually used in combination with other programs, rather than loaded on their own.
We’re all aware of the risks posed by unknown EXE files, for example, because EXE is the extension for native Windows programs – even the operating system itself is implemented as a collection of EXEs.
How long will the crooks take to start abusing this new-found knowledge?.How long will it take to unlearn an ingrained habit of trusting those files?.We’re sure you have the same sort of reaction.Īfter all, if a file type that you’ve treated for years as mostly harmless suddenly turns out to be possibly very dangerous, you’re faced with a double dilemma: Our cybersecurity antennae always start vibrating when we see warnings about attacks that involve a new type of file.