What is a Drive-By Download?
A Drive-By Download involves a computer becoming infected with malware simply by visiting a malicious website. This means no clicks are required to infect a computer with malware. Drive-by downloads exploit browser (and plug-in) vulnerabilities to deliver malicious software to a computer.
How to Recognize This Threat: Recognizing the threat is difficult, as often drive-by downloads are connected to compromised, legitimate sites that a user may regularly visit. This means, users do not need to be tricked into visiting a malicious site to become infected.
How to Prevent This Threat: Avoiding unknown, malicious sites is still recommended to limit possible exposure. Beyond that, browsers should be kept up-to-date, and networks should be equipped with robust endpoint security along with web filtering.