Number 1 Viruses of the Day: Stay Away From W32/Azero.a!

Do you think that your computer system is safe and well-protected? Well, I'd advise you to think everything over because you can't even imagine how many worms, Trojans, viruses and other malware are trying to infect your system and start their malicious activities. W32/Azero.a is just one of them. As this virus takes the fourth place in the VirusTotal list of 'Top 10 Infected Files', its really worth our attention. What are the other most often detected threats and what should you know about W32/Azero.a?

According to VirusTotal - an online service providing free malware scanning for individual files - In the last 24 hours the following threats were detected the most often by their system. Here you will also find a link to an article about the threat:

Table 1.  Top threats of the day

Among all these, W32/Azero.a takes the fourth place with 1055 detections in the last 24 hours. This virus is known to affect 32 bit versions of Windows, including Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows XP. W32/Azero.a infects executable (.exe) files and attempts to end certain processes on the compromised computer in order to prevent users from removing the threat.

Upon execution W32/Azero.a copies itself as the following files:

• %System%\Windows 3d.scr
• %System%\commandprompt.sysm
• %System%\desktop.sysm
• %UserProfile%\application data\Microsoft\[4 RANDOM LETTERS].exe

In order for the malware to run every time Windows starts, the following registry entry is created:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\"VisualStyle" = "%System%\desktop.sysm"

Below you can find a list with possible alias names of W32/Azero.a:

Table 2.  Alias names of W32/Azero.a

So once again, stay extremely alert because your computer is at risk of being infected every time you lose your attention and start clicking on unknown emails and links, or start downloading unsolicited attachments. It is essential to enable a firewall on your computer, as well as get the latest computer updates and up-to-date antivirus software. Don't forget to be cautious when dealing with file transfers and of course keep an eye out for my next article about the "Number 1 viruses of the day".