Behind the scenes, a "Dropper" script went to work. To keep Elena from getting suspicious, it quickly opened a fake, blurry PDF document on her screen. While she was squinting at the fake document, the malware was busy in the background:
Here is a story of how this digital "Trojan Horse" works its way onto a computer. The Decoy: A Letter from the Tax Man executare_silita_an‮fdp.exe
In some versions of this attack, the "Enforced Collection" becomes a reality as Ransomware begins locking her files, demanding a real payment to get them back. The Moral of the Story Behind the scenes, a "Dropper" script went to work
The attacker named the file executare_silita_an followed by the RTLO character. They then typed fdp.exe . The Decoy: A Letter from the Tax Man
When Elena double-clicked the file, her computer didn't open a PDF reader. Instead, it saw the .exe extension and ran the code.
It began scanning her browser for saved passwords and banking cookies.