Chinese Malware Found Inside Required Business Software

Three weeks ago, security researchers detected and exposed a piece of malware lurking inside of tax software that the Chinese government requires companies to install. The evidence gathered reveals that the spy campaign showed that a separate piece of malware released equally sophisticated ways to infect the taxpayers in China. GoldenHelper, which is the name of the malware, conceals its behavior by hiding inside the Golden Tax Invoicing software which all companies that are registered in China are required to use to pay value-added taxes. Researchers found that the malware can bypass the User Account Control, the Windows Mechanism that requires the users to give permission before software can install programs or make any system changes.

GoldenHelper plays tricks to cover its existence and evade detection. These tricks include random generated filenames, random generation ‘creation’ and ‘last write’ timestamps, hardcoded logic that uses domain lookup data to control.” This discovery came to light three weeks after Trustwave exposed GoldenSpy, an advanced spyware that company researches found installed inside their network’s large multinational technology company.

Even technology companies have suffered with unwanted malware subtly placed within their systems. If you are worried that your business may be exposed to unwanted malware, please feel free to reach out to OptfinITy at (703)790-0400 or email us at info@opftinity.com