VB Blog

VB2017 video: Turning Trickbot: decoding an encrypted command-and-control channel

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 3, 2017

Trickbot, a banking trojan which appeared this year, seems to be a new, more modular, and more extensible malware descendant of the notorious Dyre botnet trojan. At VB2017, Symantec researcher Andrew Brandt presented a walkthrough of a typical Trickbot infection process, and its aftermath, as seen through the lens of a tool used to perform man-in-the-middle decryption. Today, we publish both Andrew's slides and the recording of his presentation.

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Paper: FAME - Friendly Malware Analysis Framework

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 2, 2017

Today, we publish a short paper in which CERT Société Générale presents FAME, its open source malware analysis framework.

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Ebury and Mayhem server malware families still active

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 31, 2017

Ebury and Mayhem, two families of Linux server malware, about which VB published papers back in 2014, are still active and have received recent updates.

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VB2017 paper: Crypton - exposing malware's deepest secrets

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 27, 2017

Crypton, a tool developed by F5 Networks researchers Julia Karpin and Anna Dorfman, aims to speed up the reverse engineering process by decrypting encrypted content found in a (malicious) binary. The researchers described the tool in a paper which they presented at VB2017 in Madrid. Today, we publish both the paper and the recording of their presentation.

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VB2017 paper: The sprawling market of consumer spyware

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 25, 2017

For many people, the threat of an abusive partner or ex-partner is very real - and the market for consumer spyware worryingly large. Today, we publish the recording of a presentation on the subject of consumer spyware given at VB2017 by The Daily Beast reporter Joseph Cox.

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Gábor Szappanos wins fourth Péter Szőr Award

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 23, 2017

At the VB2017 gala dinner, the fourth Péter Szőr Award was presented to Sophos researcher Gábor Szappanos for his paper "AKBuilder – the crowdsourced exploit kit".

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VB2017 paper: Walking in your enemy's shadow: when fourth-party collection becomes attribution hell

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 20, 2017

We publish the VB2017 paper and video by Kaspersky Lab researchers Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and Costin Raiu, in which they look at fourth-party collection (spies spying on other spies' campaigns) and its implications for attribution.

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Didn't come to VB2017? Tell us why!

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 11, 2017

Virus Bulletin is a company - and a conference - with a mission: to further the research in and facilitate the fight against digital threats. To help us in this mission, we want to hear from those who didn't come to Madrid. What is your impression of the VB Conference? What did you think of this year's programme? And why couldn't you come to Madrid?

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Montreal will host VB2018

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 10, 2017

Last week, we announced the full details of VB2018, which will take place 3-5 October 2018 at the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

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VB2017 preview: Beyond lexical and PDNS (guest blog)

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Oct 5, 2017

In a special guest blog post, VB2017 Silver sponsor Cisco Umbrella writes about a paper that researchers Dhia Mahjoub and David Rodriguez will present at the conference this Friday.

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VB2014 preview: two papers on Linux server malware

Researchers from ESET, Yandex and Symantec look at emerging malware trend.
Researchers from ESET, Yandex and Symantec look at emerging malware trend.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference), we are looking at… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-two-papers-linux-server-malware/

VB2014 preview: keynote and closing panel

Vulnerability disclosure one of the hottest issues in security.
Vulnerability disclosure one of the hottest issues in security. In the proceedings of the 24th Virus Bulletin conference, the words 'vulnerabilty' and 'vulnerabilities' occur more… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-keynote-and-closing-panel/

Report: VB100 comparative review on Windows Server 2012

23 out of 29 tested products earn VB100 award.
23 out of 29 tested products earn VB100 award.Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8, the most recent version of Microsoft's operating system. Though supposedly… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/report-comparative-review-windows-server-2012/

DNS cache poisoning used to steal emails

Call to use end-to-end encryption and to deploy DNSSEC.
Call to use end-to-end encryption and to deploy DNSSEC.DNS is sometimes called 'the phone book of the Internet'. If true, then it is a phone book that makes it relatively easy to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/dns-cache-poisoning-used-steal-emails/

VB2014 preview: Apple without a shell - iOS under targeted attack

FireEye researchers show a large attack vector for Apple's mobile operating system.
FireEye researchers show a large attack vector for Apple's mobile operating system.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference), we are… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-apple-without-shell-ios-under-targeted-attack/

Paper: Prosecting the Citadel botnet - revealing the dominance of the Zeus descendent: part two

Aditya K. Sood and Rohit Bansal study the malware's behaviour when ran on a physical machine.
Aditya K. Sood and Rohit Bansal study the malware's behaviour when ran on a physical machine. Last week, we published the first part of the paper 'Prosecting the Citadel botnet -… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/paper-prosecting-citadel-botnet-revealing-dominance-zeus-descendent-part-two/

Left-to-right override makes a return in spam

Trick shows that spammers still try to beat content-based filters.
Trick shows that spammers still try to beat content-based filters. A decade ago, when spam had become a serious issue, most spam filters tried to block the unwanted emails based on… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/left-right-override-makes-return-spam/

Crypto blunder makes TorrentLocker easy to crack

Use of single XOR key leaves ransomware open to known-plaintext attack.
Use of single XOR key leaves ransomware open to known-plaintext attack. It has been said many times before: cryptography is hard. Earlier this year, the authors of the 'Bitcrypt'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/crypto-blunder-makes-torrentlocker-easy-crack/

VB2014 preview: The three levels of exploit testing

Richard Ford and Marco Carvalho present an idea for how to test products that claim to detect the unknown.
Richard Ford and Marco Carvalho present an idea for how to test products that claim to detect the unknown.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-three-levels-exploit-testing/

VB2014 preview: last-minute papers added to the programme

Hot topics to be covered at VB2014 conference in Seattle.
Hot topics to be covered at VB2014 conference in Seattle. Although most of the VB2014 conference programme was announced back in April, it looks anything but dated. A paper on… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-last-minute-papers-added-programme/

Paper: Prosecting the Citadel botnet - revealing the dominance of the Zeus descendent: part one

Aditya K. Sood and Rohit Bansal dissect botnet primarily used for financial fraud.
Aditya K. Sood and Rohit Bansal dissect botnet primarily used for financial fraud. It is unlikely that anyone still thinks that cybercrime is performed by 16-year-old kids who… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/paper-prosecting-citadel-botnet-revealing-dominance-zeus-descendent-part-one/

VB2014 preview: Swipe away, we're watching you

Hong Kei Chan and Liang Huang describe the various aspects and the evolution of point-of-sale malware.
Hong Kei Chan and Liang Huang describe the various aspects and the evolution of point-of-sale malware.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/preview-swipe-away-we-re-watching-you/

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Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/

VB2014 preview: Design to discover: security analytics with 3D visualization engine

Thibault Reuille and Dhia Mahjoub use particle physics to shows clusters of malicious domains.
Thibault Reuille and Dhia Mahjoub use particle physics to shows clusters of malicious domains.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference),… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/preview-design-discover-security-analytics-3d-visualization-engine/

Malicious ads served on java.com

If you do need to run plug-ins, make sure you enable click-to-play.
If you do need to run plug-ins, make sure you enable click-to-play. Last week, we published a blog previewing the VB2014 paper 'Optimized mal-ops. Hack the ad network like a boss'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/malicious-ads-served-java-com/

Srizbi kernel-mode spambot reappears as Pitou

Malware possibly still in the 'brewing' stage.
Malware possibly still in the 'brewing' stage. In November 2007, we published an article by Kimmo Kasslin (F-Secure) and Elia Florio (Symantec), in which they analysed the 'Srizbi'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/srizbi-kernel-mode-spambot-reappears-pitou/

VB2014 preview: Methods of malware persistence on Mac OS X

Patrick Wardle shows that OS X users really have something to worry about.
Patrick Wardle shows that OS X users really have something to worry about.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference), we will look at some… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/preview-methods-malware-persistence-mac-os-x/

More than two million home routers have 'wide open backdoor'

Default password makes vulnerability easy to exploit.
Default password makes vulnerability easy to exploit. Researchers at Trend Micro have discovered an easy-to-exploit backdoor in routers from Chinese manufacturer Netcore, that… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/more-two-million-home-routers-have-wide-open-backdoor/

VB2014 preview: Duping the machine - malware strategies, post sandbox detection

James Wyke looks at four difference decoy methods.
James Wyke looks at four difference decoy methods.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference), we will look at some of the research that… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/preview-duping-machine-malware-strategies-post-sandbox-detection/

Paper: Bird's nest

Raul Alvarez studies the Neshta prepending file infector.
Raul Alvarez studies the Neshta prepending file infector. File infectors can be categorized by how they attach themselves to the host file. A cavity virus attaches itself to the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/paper-bird-s-nest/

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