The adware program often is used as an entry-point for various cyber threats from viruses to Trojan Horses that can cause damage to their computer systems. "In the past six months we’ve seen a trend in multi-stage attacks against machines," Patrick Hinojosa, chief technology officer at Panda Software USA, said Wednesday. "There are several reasons for this. Either those launching the attacks haven’t determined what they want to use the machines for or they want to install a general purpose program so they can take control of the machine."
Many times this is a precursor to creating a bot network, Hinojosa said. Panda has developed security signatures to detect this program that is automatically distributed to its customers through the Internet.
Those downloading the files are required to also download a license to play the files, which involves agreeing to install adware. The files, alleged video file (*.wmv) or de audio file (*.wma), received by PandaLabs do not contain video or music. The files are detected by Panda Software as WmaDownloader.B.
