Hackers Leveraging Your Own Software Against You

While some hackers are writing their own malware, Haley said Symantec found that more and more of them are looking to leverage tools already inside the environment, something he called "living off the land." In particular, Haley said Symantec found that hackers are looking to leverage the PowerShell scripting language to weaponize emails and Microsoft Word documents. Symantec said upwards of 95 percent of PowerShell files it analyzed were malicious. He said this method has been "highly effective" for attackers, as it doesn't flag the usual indicators of an attack, such as executables and common malware traits.