Mal/Palevo-A

Posted: December 7, 2011

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	5/10
Infected PCs:	14

First Seen:	December 7, 2011
Last Seen:	May 5, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Mal/Palevo-A is a worm that may be configured for a range of different attacks against your PC such as allowing criminals to access and control the computer. Mal/Palevo-A spreads to new computers by infecting files that are stored in removable drives (such as USB devices) and installs itself automatically on any PC that reuses the same device. Although Mal/Palevo-A focuses on infecting the files for Windows operating systems, Mal/Palevo-A may still spread through drives that are used by non-Windows computers, and you should pay careful attention to network and removable drive security for any computer that may be infected by Mal/Palevo-A. Since Mal/Palevo-A may present few symptoms and use advanced techniques to avoid deletion, SpywareRemove.com malware analysts encourage you to remove Mal/Palevo-A by using appropriate and up-to-date anti-malware products.

Mal/Palevo-A - a PC Threat That Snuggles Right Up Against Your Windows Processes

Mal/Palevo-A powers its functions by hiding a malicious code inside of otherwise-normal files and processes – in Mal/Palevo-A's case, within basic Windows files like explorer.exe. This allows Mal/Palevo-A to launch itself whenever Windows starts and conduct its attacks in a stealthy manner. In many cases, the only signs of Mal/Palevo-A infections can be warnings from your anti-malware programs or unusual memory usage by Windows processes (the latter can be observed in Task Manager from the Processes tab).

From this comfortable position, Mal/Palevo-A may be instructed to launch any number of attacks, but Mal/Palevo-A is most well-known for its creation of backdoor security vulnerabilities. SpywareRemove.com malware analysts warn that backdoor holes that are created by Mal/Palevo-A can allow hackers not only to access all the information on your PC but even control it outright for criminal purposes.

Lest You Forget About Mal/Palevo-A's Worm Propagation Strategy

Along with its backdoor Trojan features, Mal/Palevo-A can also up the ante by becoming a triple threat with worm-based distribution techniques. SpywareRemove.com malware experts have found that Mal/Palevo-A can infect .exe files in a wide range of locations, with a particular focus on removable drives (such as USB storage devices). This allows Mal/Palevo-A to infect any PC that also shares usage of these drives. As such, careful monitoring of your network security and removable drive security can be considered utterly mandatory to prevent a Mal/Palevo-A infection from spreading to new computers.

Deleting Mal/Palevo-A should entail usage of good anti-malware programs when you can access such products, although different programs may detect Mal/Palevo-A by alternate names. Aliases that Mal/Palevo-A can also be identified under include W32.Pilleuz, W32/Autorun.worm!a758e0e7, Metulji, ButterflyBot.A and W32/Rimecud. Anything less than a complete system scan may fail to remove all Mal/Palevo-A components since Mal/Palevo-A may infect multiple processes or create backups of itself in several locations on your PC.

Aliases

SHeur3.GXG [AVG]Trojan.Peerfrag [Ikarus]W32.Pilleuz!gen1 [Symantec]Mal/Palevo-A [Sophos]Trojan.Peerfrag.GG [McAfee-GW-Edition]TR/Peerfrag.GG [AntiVir]Win32.HLLW.Lime.18 [DrWeb]Trojan.Peerfrag!IK [a-squared]a variant of Win32/Kryptik.DCT [NOD32]W32/Palevo.gen.a [McAfee+Artemis]

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

%USERPROFILE%\csrss.exe

File name: csrss.exe
Size: 144.89 KB (144896 bytes)
MD5: 6125b2e66843eb727768ba506e27d105
Detection count: 1
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Path: %USERPROFILE%
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: January 28, 2013

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\rthdti.exe

File name: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\rthdti.exe
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{Subkeys}HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Taskman,(REG_SZ:%appdatadir%\rthdti.exe), (REG_SZ:)