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VB2019 presentation: A deep dive into iPhone exploit chains

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jan 10, 2020

In a last-minute presentation at VB2019 in London, John Bambenek of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discussed details of campaigns that used advanced iOS and Android exploit chains against China’s Uighur minority. Today we release the recording of John's presentation.

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Latest VBWeb report describes current state of the web-based threat landscape

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Jan 8, 2020

Today we released the Winter 2020 VBWeb report, detailing the performance of web security products against live web threats and looking at the current state of the web-based threat landscape.

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VB2019 paper: Catch me if you can: detection of injection exploitation by validating query and API integrity

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jan 6, 2020

In a paper presented at VB2019 in London, Prismo Systems researchers Abhishek Singh and Ramesh Mani discussed code injection vulnerabilities and presented a tool that could detect this vulnerability class. Today we publish their paper and the recording of their presentation.

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Virus Bulletin says a fond farewell and thank you to Martijn Grooten

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Dec 31, 2019

As VB Editor Martijn Grooten steps down from his role to move on to new challenges, the team wish him a fond farewell and the very best of luck in his future endeavours.

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VB2019 paper: Never before had Stierlitz been so close to failure (or: what is a Soviet super-spy doing in a popular bundleware for Mac?)

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 27, 2019

Today, we publish the VB2019 paper and video by Sophos researcher Sergei Shevchenko in which he analyses a popular yet unnamed piece of macOS ‘bundleware’.

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Parting thoughts 5: bringing the good news

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 23, 2019

In the final of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten argues for more emphasis on the good news in security, especially that which is more subtle.

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Parting thoughts 4: the big picture

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Dec 20, 2019

In the fourth of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why security researchers should refer to other people's work.

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Parting thoughts 3: taking security seriously

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 19, 2019

In the third of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why he believes security vendors should take their products' security more seriously.

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VB2019 paper: Exploring the Chinese DDoS landscape

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 19, 2019

China has long been a hotbed of DDoS activities, and today we publish a VB2019 paper by Intezer researcher Nacho Sanmillan who looked at Chinese threat groups engaged in performing DDoS attacks. We have also uploaded the recording of his presentation.

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Parting thoughts 2: the need for education in security

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 18, 2019

In the second of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why he believes cybersecurity professionals need to educate themselves on the complexities of the real-world situations in which security is applied.

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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/

September

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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