Discord virus is a common name for malspamming campaigns, that aim at inexperienced users who use, exactly, Discord. It is similar to another spam – so-called Facebook virus. However, they have several significant differences, which come from the differences between Facebook and Discord users. Let’s see how to understand that someone tries to involve you in this online scam.
Explaining the Discord virus: exploiting the illiteracy
Malicious links may easily be distinguished from normal ones. Their domains are strange, names are dubious, and the reason why it was sent is usually as strange as it can be. Will you trust a stranger (or an unknown bot) who suddenly sends you a link on the website, where you can get a free $1000 Amazon gift card? Unlikely. But there will be several users who will check that link, see the exploit website, and get a virus, or potentially unwanted program. Not a very good result, isn’t it?
But Discord virus is not only about such easy and fool-oriented spamming. Since this communication platform is massively used by programmers, it is quite easy to find a rare self-made utility for a specific task. Such programs can sometimes be detected by anti-malware software as malicious items. This situation happens because the security tool doesn’t know that this program is not a virus, but a legit utility. That’s why the recommendation to disable the antivirus program is not rising suspicion for the majority of Discord users. And here the party goes on: here crooks start to exploit the trust to this social network.
Social engineering is used on a crowd
Fraudster enters the server. He takes part in the conversations and makes a conclusion about how to bait the users to click his link. Sometimes, there is no link, but a whole file of something attractive. Then, a spammer sends this item into a conversation, saying something like “this stuff helped me to solve this problem, try it too” or so. And it is obvious that the users who have that trouble will check the offered solution. Even antivirus software will be useless, if the fraudster says to disable it; no one even will raise suspicion.
In some cases, when fraudsters understand that the participants on the server are not experienced, first may exploit the absence of knowledge. A lot of Discord virus cases were related to fake Discord Nitro applications. As spammers state, they share a cracked Discord client, which allows you to use Nitro functions without purchasing the subscription. Advanced users surely know that information about active subscriptions is stored on the developer’s server. It is impossible to change this data by hacking the client version of the app. However, someone inexperienced may easily be caught on this lure, trusting that there is an exploit or so.
How dangerous is the Discord virus?
There is no strict list of the viruses which are distributed through spamming in Discord. Users report spyware, coin miners, stealers, adware, and various other malware types. In case of social engineering, you may get not a virus, but a blank program. This app has only a login window, which repeats the design of the same window in the original Discord. When you type your login/password in the corresponding fields, you will see the login error notification, and then nothing. Your account login/password are transferred to the crook who sent you this “app”.
Other viruses may be even more dangerous. Stealers and spyware can get all credentials you store on your PC. You can read more about how spyware acts in this post. Adware is a gateway for any kind of virus, including the ones I have mentioned above. Trojan-downloader will just flood your PC with a wide range of different viruses, and you will barely be able to use your computer as usual. Exploit viruses will open all security breaches on your PC and then conduct malware downloading. The conclusion is very easy and short – be very careful when using unknown programs or accepting very attractive offers.