Hackers increasingly aim for cross-platform vulnerabilities
More and more hackers are targeting the same application vulnerabilities on Macs and Windows PCs as a way to reap the financial benefits of writing cross-platform malware.
The trend involves exploiting vulnerabilities that go as far back as 2009 in Office documents. Other cross-platform, third-party technologies favored by hackers include Java, Adobe PDF and Adobe Flash, Microsoft security researcher Methusela Cebrian Ferrer said Tuesday in the company's Malware Protection Center blog.
Targeting the same vulnerabilities in applications commonly found on both platforms allows hackers to reap profits twice from the same malware, a trend Ferrer calls "economies of scale in cross-platform vulnerabilities. "This method of distribution allows the attacker to maximize their capability on multiple platforms," he said.
