VB Blog

VB2016 video: Last-minute paper: Malicious proxy auto-configs: an easy way to harvest banking credentials

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 30, 2017

In a VB2016 last-minute presentation, Jaromír Horejší and Jan Širmer looked at Retefe, a trojan that has targeted banks in several European countries and used malicious proxy auto-config filesto redirect users' traffic to a server controlled by the attackers. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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WannaCry shows we need to understand why organizations don't patch

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 17, 2017

Perhaps the question we should be asking about WannaCry is not "why do so many organizations allow unpatched machines to exist on their networks?" but "why doesn't patching work reasonably well most of the time?"

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Modern security software is not necessarily powerless against threats like WannaCry

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 15, 2017

The WannaCry ransomware has affected many organisations around the world, making it probably the worst and most damaging of its kind. But modern security is not necessarily powerless against such threats.

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Throwback Thursday: CARO: A personal view

Posted by   Helen Martin on   May 11, 2017

This week sees the 11th International CARO Workshop taking place in Krakow, Poland – a prestigious annual meeting of anti-malware and security experts. As a founding member of CARO, Fridrik Skulason was well placed, in August 1994, to shed some light on the organization, to explain in detail CARO's main activities and functions, as well as the reasons behind its strict membership regulations.

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VB2016 paper: Uncovering the secrets of malvertising

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 10, 2017

Malicious advertising, a.k.a. malvertising, has evolved tremendously over the past few years to take a central place in some of today’s largest web-based attacks. It is by far the tool of choice for attackers to reach the masses but also to target them with infinite precision and deliver such payloads as ransomware. Today, we publish a paper presented at VB2016 in Denver by Malwarebytes researchers Jérôme Segura and Chris Boyd, in which they look at the advertising ecosystem, how it is used, and at what techniques are being utilised to spread malware

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Throwback Thursday: Tools of the DDoS Trade

Posted by   Helen Martin on   May 4, 2017

As DDoS attacks become costlier to fix and continue to increase in both number and diversity, we turn back the clock to 2000, when Aleksander Czarnowski took a look at the DDoS tools of the day.

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VB2016 paper: Building a local passiveDNS capability for malware incident response

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 4, 2017

At VB2016, Splunk researchers Kathy Wang and Steve Brant presented a Splunk app that can be used to locally collect passive DNS data. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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VB2016 video: Last-minute paper: A malicious OS X cocktail served from a tainted bottle

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 28, 2017

In a VB2016 last-minute presentation, ESET researchers Peter Kalnai and Martin Jirkal looked at the OS X malware threats KeRanger and Keydnap, that both spread through a compromised BitTorrent client. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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Consumer spyware: a serious threat with a different threat model

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 25, 2017

Consumer spyware is a growing issue and one that can have serious consequences: its use is increasingly common in domestic violence. But do our threat models consider the attacker with physical access to, and inside knowledge of the victim?

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VB2016 paper: Debugging and monitoring malware network activities with Haka

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 24, 2017

In their VB2016 paper, Stormshield researchers Benoît Ancel and Mehdi Talbi introduced Haka, an open-source language to monitor, debug and control malicious network traffic. Both their paper and the video recording of their presentation are now available to read/view on www.virusbulletin.com.

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Search blog

To make Tor work better on the web, we need to be honest about it

Many websites put barriers in front of visitors who use the Tor network. If we want to make the web more accessible through Tor, we need to be honest about why this is done, rather than cry wolf about a dislike for privacy, Martijn Grooten says.
If you regularly browse the web through the Tor network, you will have noticed that many websites are either inaccessible, or have strong barriers (in the form of difficult… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/05/make-tor-work-better-web-we-need-be-honest-about-it/

Paper: How It Works: Steganography Hides Malware in Image Files

A new paper by CYREN researcher Lordian Mosuela takes a close look at Gatak, or Stegoloader, a piece of malware that was discovered last year and that is controlled via malicious code embedded in a PNG image, a technique known as steganography.
Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words. And sometimes in computer security, a picture contains a thousand words, or rather a lot of commands, used by malware authors… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/paper-how-it-works-steganography-hides-malware-image-files/

Paying a malware ransom is bad, but telling people never to do it is unhelpful advice

The current ransomware plague is one of the worst threats the Internet has seen and it is unlikely to go away any time soon. But telling people to never pay the ransom is unhelpful advice.
I'm not usually one to spread panic about security issues, but in the case of the current ransomware plague, I believe that at the very least a sense of great concern is… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/paying-malware-ransom-bad-telling-people-never-do-it-unhelpful-advice/

VB2015 paper: VolatilityBot: Malicious Code Extraction Made by and for Security Researchers

In his VB2015 paper, Martin Korman presented his 'VolatilyBot' tool, which extracts malicious code from packed binaries, leveraging the functionality of the Volatility Framework.
Given the sheer volume of new malware samples discovered every day, security researchers eagerly make use of tools that will help automate their research and analysis. IBM… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/02/vb2015-paper-volatilitybot-malicious-code-extraction-made-and-security-researchers/

VB2016 programme announced, registration opened

We have announced 37 papers (and four reserve papers) that will be presented at VB2016 in Denver, Colorado, USA in October. Registration for the conference has opened; make sure you register before 1 July to benefit from a 10% early bird discount.
We are excited to officially announce the programme for VB2016, the 26th International Virus Bulletin Conference, which will take place in Denver, Colorado, USA 5-7 October this… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/vb2016-programme-announced-registrations-opened/

New tool helps ransomware victims indentify the malware family

The people behind the MalwareHunterTeam have released a tool that helps victims of ransomware identify which of more than 50 families has infected their system, something which could help them find a tool to decrypt their files.
Malware infections are never fun, but ransomware is particularly nasty and the plague doesn't seem likely to cease any time soon: new families are spotted almost daily. A small… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/new-tool-helps-ransomware-victims-indentify-malware-family/

It's fine for vulnerabilities to have names — we just need not to take them too seriously

The PR campaign around the Badlock vulnerability backfired when it turned out that the vulnerability wasn't as serious as had been suggested. But naming vulnerabilities can actually be helpful and certainly shouldn't hurt.
“What's in a name? That which we call Heartbleed by any other name would be just as malicious.” — William Shakespeare (paraphrased) When OpenSSL vulnerability… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/it-fine-vulnerabilities-have-names-we-just-need-not-take-them-too-seriously/

April

Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/

Throwback Thursday: The Number of the Beasts

The Virus Bulletin Virus Prevalence Table, which ran from 1992 until 2013, gave users a regular snapshot of what was really going on in the virus (and later malware) world, recording the number of incidents of each virus reported to VB in the preceding mo…
The Virus Bulletin Virus Prevalence Table, which ran from 1992 until 2013, gave users a regular snapshot of what was really going on in the virus (and later malware) world, each… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/04/throwback-thursday-number-beasts1/

Paper: All Your Meetings Are Belong to Us: Remote Code Execution in Apache OpenMeetings

Security researcher Andreas Lindh recently found a vulnerability in Apache OpenMeetings that could allow remote code execution on a vulnerable server. Andreas reported the vulnerability to the OpenMeetings developers and, once it had been patched, he wrot…
The rise of bug bounties in recent years has created an incentive for hackers to hunt for vulnerabilities in a lot of software and services. But what about those software projects… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/paper-all-your-meetings-are-belong-us-remote-code-execution-apache-openmeetings/

Throwback Thursday: 'In the Beginning was the Word...'

Word and Excel’s internal file formats used to be something in which few were interested – until macro viruses came along and changed all that. In 1996, Andrew Krukov provided an overview of the new breed of viruses.
Microsoft has recently introduced a new feature to Office 2016: the ability to block macros,in an attempt to curb the spread of macro malware, which is once again on the rise.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/throwback-thursday-beginning-was-word/

VB2016 Call for Papers Deadline

You have until the early hours (GMT) of Monday 21 March to submit an abstract for VB2016! The VB2016 programme will be announced in the first week of April.
If you read our blog or follow us on social media, you can't have missed the fact that the deadline for submissions for VB2016 is 18 March. That's today! If you haven't… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/vb2016-call-papers-deadline/

How broken is SHA-1 really?

SHA-1 collisions may be found in the next few months, but that doesn't mean that fake SHA-1-based certificates will be created in the near future. Nevertheless, it is time for everyone, and those working in security in particular, to move away from outdat…
Earlier this month, I gave a talk entitled "How Broken Is Our Crypto Really?" at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. In the presentation, I looked at vulnerabilities found in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/how-broken-sha-1-really/

VB2016 Call for Papers - Frequently Asked Questions

Are you interested in submitting an abstract for VB2016? We've answered some frequently asked questions about the Call for Papers, which closes next week.
The call for papers for VB2016, the 26th Virus Bulletin conference, which takes place 5 to 7 October in Denver, CO, USA, is currently open. We've had some excellent… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/vb2016-call-papers-frequently-asked-questions/

Throwback Thursday: Hash Woes

This Throwback Thursday we go back to 2004, when the entire crypto community was abuzz with the news that a group of Chinese researchers had demonstrated flaws in a whole set of hash functions - VB took a closer look to clarify the situation and draw less…
Just last week, VB Editor Martijn Grooten addressed an audience at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on the topic of cryptographic protocols that have supposedly been broken in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/throwback-thursday-hash-woes/

March

VB Blog posts published in March 2016
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/

VB2015 paper: Mobile Banking Fraud via SMS in North America: Who's Doing it and How

Though SMS may have been claimed dead many time, it is still very much alive, and quite popular among mobile phishers. At VB2015, Adaptive Mobile researcher Cathal Mc Daid presented a paper various mobile phishing campaigns targeting North American banks.
While SMS has been declared dead many times, the service remains frequently used - and abused. In a paper presented at VB2015 in Prague, Adaptive Mobile researcher Cathal Mc… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/03/vb2015-paper-mobile-banking-fraud-sms-north-america-whos-doing-it-and-how/

Throwback Thursday: Viruses on the Internet

This Throwback Thursday VB heads back to 1996 when - long before the days of driveby downloads and exploit kits - VB published a report on the state of viruses on the Internet.
This Throwback Thursday VB heads back to 1996 when VB published a report on the state of viruses on the Internet. In the mid-1990s, long before the days of driveby downloads… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/02/throwback-thursday-viruses-internet-blog/

RSA and BSides San Francisco

Next week, Virus Bulletin Editor Martijn Grooten will attend the RSA conference in San Francisco, where he will give a talk entitled "How Broken Is Our Crypto Really?" He will also speak at BSides San Francisco, where he will give a talk entitled "Ellipti…
Next week, almost everyone with a stake in or an opinion on IT security will be in San Francisco for the annual RSA Conference. I will be there as well, and although Virus… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/02/rsa-and-bsides-san-francisco/

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