VB2019 paper: 2,000 reactions to a malware attack – accidental study

Posted by    on   Mar 24, 2020

In an illuminating study – possible thanks to a unique perspective on a malicious email campagin – cybercrime journalist and researcher Adam Haertlé (BadCyber.com/ZaufanaTrzeciaStrona.pl) read, analysed and classified 1,976 responses sent by victims of a malicious email campaign.

In taking revenge for Adam having written about them on his blog, the senders of a malicious email campaign decided to include his email address in the ‘reply-to’ field of the emails – thus meaning that Adam was privy to all replies sent in response to their campaign.

Many of the victims were unaware that the message they had received was fake and contained malware. Some even asked for the (malicious) attachment to be resent as it had been blocked by their anti-virus product.

Figure 4.pngMessage analysis.

At VB2019 Adam presented an analysis of the unsolicited responses – revealing that the we should not count on users to react properly to Internet threats.

Today we publish Adam's paper in both HTML and PDF format and also release the recording of his presentation.

VB2019-conference-paper.jpg2,000 reactions to a malware attack – accidental study

Read the paper (HTML)

Download the paper (PDF)

 

 

 

twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.