VB Blog

Tizi Android malware highlights the importance of security patches for high-risk users

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 28, 2017

Researchers from Google have taken down 'Tizi', an Android malware family, that used nine already patched vulnerabilities to obtain root on infected devices.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 27, 2017

Next week, Virus Bulletin researchers will be attending the AMTSO meeting and AVAR conference in Beijing, China, as well as the 5th edition of the Botconf conference in Montpellier, France.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 24, 2017

Today, we publish the video of the VB2017 presentation by ESET researcher Filip Kafka, who looked at recent changes in the FinFisher government malware, including its infection vectors.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 23, 2017

We look back at the VB2016 presentation by Adrian Sanabria on the state of endpoint security, both now and in the future.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 22, 2017

At VB2017 in Madrid, Cisco Umbrella (OpenDNS) researchers Dhia Mahjoub and David Rodriguez presented a new approach to detecting infected machines using graphs to detect botnet traffic at scale. Today we publish both Dhia and David's paper and the recording of their presentation.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 21, 2017

Firefox developer Mozilla has announced that, as of version 59 of the browser, many kinds of data URIs, which provide a way to create "domainless web content", will not be rendered in the browser, thus making this trick - used in various phishing campaigns - a lot less attractive.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 16, 2017

Virus Bulletin ran a standalone test on FireEye's Endpoint Security solution.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 13, 2017

Jelena Milosevic, a nurse with a passion for IT security, is uniquely placed to witness poor security practices in the health care sector, and to fully understand the consequences. Today, we publish the recording of a presentation given by Jelena at VB2017 in Madrid, in which she shared her inside view of security in hospitals.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 9, 2017

Both bad news (all devices were pwnd) and good news (pwning is increasingly difficult) came from the most recent mobile Pwn2Own competition. But the practical security risks that come with using mobile phones have little to do with vulnerabilities.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 8, 2017

At VB2017 in Madrid, industry veteran and ESET Senior Research Fellow David Harley presented a paper on the state of security software testing. Today we publish David's paper in both HTML and PDF format.

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Paper: Windows 10 patching process may leave enterprises vulnerable to zero-day attacks

Aryeh Goretsky gives advice on how to adapt to Windows 10's patching strategy.
Aryeh Goretsky gives advice on how to adapt to Windows 10's patching strategy. Patching is hard, especially when the code base is old and the bugs are buried deeply. This was… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/paper-windows-10-patching-process-may-leave-enterprises-vulnerable-zero-day-attacks/

Will DIME eventually replace email?

Protocol has all the advantages of email, yet is orders of magnitude more secure.
Protocol has all the advantages of email, yet is orders of magnitude more secure. In the current Internet era sometimes referred to as 'post-Snowden', it is often said that email… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/will-dime-eventually-replace-email/

The ghost of Stuxnet past

Microsoft patches .LNK vulnerability after 2010 patch was found to be incomplete.
Microsoft patches .LNK vulnerability after 2010 patch was found to be incomplete. Mention Stuxnet and you'll have many a security researcher's attention. The worm, which was… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/ghost-stuxnet-past/

Virus Bulletin seeks hackers, network researchers for VB2015

One week left to submit an abstract for the 25th Virus Bulletin conference.
One week left to submit an abstract for the 25th Virus Bulletin conference. A few weeks ago, I made a short visit to the Clarion Congress Hotel in Prague, where VB2015 will take… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/seeks-hackers-network-researchers/

Canadian firm fined $1.1m for breaching anti-spam law

First success story for long-awaited CASL.
First success story for long-awaited CASL. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the agency responsible for enforcing Canada's anti-spam law… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/canadian-firm-fined-1-1m-breaching-anti-spam-law/

VB2014 paper: Leaving our ZIP undone: how to abuse ZIP to deliver malware apps

Gregory Panakkal explains that there are different ways of looking at APK files - and that sometimes that can have unintended consequences.
Gregory Panakkal explains that there are different ways of looking at APK files - and that sometimes that can have unintended consequences.Since the close of the VB2014 conference… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/paper-leaving-our-zip-undone-how-abuse-zip-deliver-malware-apps/

FREAK attack takes HTTPS connections back to 1990s security

Golden keys from the (first) crypto wars have come back to haunt us.
Golden keys from the (first) crypto wars have come back to haunt us. When a web client makes a secure connection to a web server (using HTTPS), it starts by sending a 'Hello'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/freak-attack-takes-https-connections-back-1990s-security/

TorrentLocker spam has DMARC enabled

Use of email authentication technique unlikely to bring any advantage.
Use of email authentication technique unlikely to bring any advantage. Last week, Trend Micro researcher Jon Oliver (who presented a paper on Twitter abuse at VB2014) wrote an… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/torrentlocker-spam-has-dmarc-enabled/

Paper: Script in a lossy stream

Dénes Óvári explains how to store code in lossily compressed JPEG data.
Dénes Óvári explains how to store code in lossily compressed JPEG data. Malformed PDFs have become a common way to deliver malware. Naturally, when this started to happen,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/paper-script-lossy-stream/

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Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/

VB2014 paper: Caphaw - the advanced persistent pluginer

Micky Pun and Neo Tan analyse the banking trojan that is best known for spreading through Skype.
Micky Pun and Neo Tan analyse the banking trojan that is best known for spreading through Skype.Since the close of the VB2014 conference in Seattle in October, we have been sharing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/paper-caphaw-advanced-persistent-pluginer/

M3AAWG releases BCP document on dealing with child sexual abuse material

Subject may make many feel uncomfortable, but it is essential that we know how to deal with it.
Subject may make many feel uncomfortable, but it is essential that we know how to deal with it. The mere mention of "child pornography" on the Internet makes many a security expert… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/m3aawg-releases-bcp-document-dealing-child-sexual-abuse-material/

Hacker group takes over Lenovo's DNS

As emails were sent to wrong servers, DNSSEC might be worth looking into.
As emails were sent to wrong servers, DNSSEC might be worth looking into. Although, after some initial hesitation, Lenovo was rather frank in its admission of messing up regarding… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/hacker-group-takes-over-lenovo-s-dns/

Coordinated action takes down Ramnit botnet infrastructure

Malware remains present on infected machines; 2012 Virus Bulletin paper worth studying.
Malware remains present on infected machines; 2012 Virus Bulletin paper worth studying. A coordinated action from Anubisnetworks, Microsoft and Symantec, together with Europol has… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/coordinated-action-takes-down-ramnit-botnet-infrastructure/

Almost 50% increase in reported vulnerabilities as non-Windows operating systems lead the table

Each discovered vulnerability is actually a good news story.
Each discovered vulnerability is actually a good news story. Last week, security firm GFI published some research in which it looked at the number of vulnerabilities reported last… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/almost-50-increase-reported-vulnerabilities-non-windows-operating-systems-lead-table/

Vawtrak trojan spread through malicious Office macros

Users easily tricked, but plenty of opportunity for the malware to be blocked.
Users easily tricked, but plenty of opportunity for the malware to be blocked. Researchers at Trend Micro report that the 'Vawtrak' banking trojan now also spreads through Office… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/vawtrak-trojan-spread-through-malicious-office-macros/

Lenovo laptops pre-installed with software that adds its own root CA certificate

Shared root certificate makes for easy man-in-the-middle attacks.
Shared root certificate makes for easy man-in-the-middle attacks.What is Superfish?Superfish is a product that offers 'Visual Search'. Say, for example, you are looking at cat… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/lenovo-laptops-pre-installed-software-adds-its-own-root-ca-certificate/

Google relaxes disclosure policy following criticism

Grace period added for vulnerabilities that are about to be patched.
Grace period added for vulnerabilities that are about to be patched. Last year, Google announced a new disclosure policy, where details of a vulnerability discovered by the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/google-relaxes-disclosure-policy-following-criticism/

VB2014 video: .NET malware dynamic instrumentation for automated and manual analysis

Hexiang Hu used tool to detect Bladabindi backdoor.
Hexiang Hu used tool to detect Bladabindi backdoor. The .NET framework is a popular way to write software. As applications built with the framework compile into a Common… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/video-net-malware-dynamic-instrumentation-automated-and-manual-analysis/

Facebook launches platform for sharing of threat intelligence

Twitter, Yahoo! amongst early participants in 'ThreatExchange'.
Twitter, Yahoo! amongst early participants in 'ThreatExchange'. When I took my first steps in the security industry, I was surprised by just how much information was shared between… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/facebook-launches-platform-sharing-threat-intelligence/

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