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

Ransomware returns

Trojan hides personal data, demands money with menaces.
Trojan hides personal data, demands money with menaces. A new version of a ransomware trojan has been sighted, recalling the warnings of two years ago when similar items first… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/ransomware-returns/

Study promotes challenge-response for anti-spam

Interactive system rated best blocker in questioned survey.
Interactive system rated best blocker in questioned survey. A study of anti-spam systems, using a bespoke scale to rate protection offered, has found the challenge-response method… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/study-promotes-challenge-response-anti-spam/

MessageLabs may be next takeover target

Managed services provider thought ripe for acquisition.
Managed services provider thought ripe for acquisition. Managed security specialist MessageLabs has been labelled a likely candidate for takeover by one of the industry giants, in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/messagelabs-may-be-next-takeover-target/

Microsoft files adware system patent

Ads could be targeted at users based on local system data.
Ads could be targeted at users based on local system data.Microsoft has filed a patent application for a new method of targeting advertising, using information on the contents of a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/microsoft-files-adware-system-patent/

Japan to tighten spam laws

Proposals to further restrict email and phone spamming.
Proposals to further restrict email and phone spamming. The Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is planning a series of improvements to current anti-spam… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/japan-tighten-spam-laws/

26 phishing arrests in Italy

Police swoop on Poste Italiane spam scam gangs.
Police swoop on Poste Italiane spam scam gangs. In a first for Italy, the Guardia Di Finanza has made 26 arrests from two separate groups of phishing fraudsters, in the culmination… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/26-phishing-arrests-italy/

Security industry future looks solid, say analysts

Reports predict revenues will continue rising.
Reports predict revenues will continue rising. Analyst firm Global Industry Analysts (GIA) has released its latest report on the future of the IT security market, predicting… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/security-industry-future-looks-solid-say-analysts/

Sony sues maker of MediaMax DRM system

CD protection developer accused of damaging Sony name.
CD protection developer accused of damaging Sony name.Sony BMG, the division of the Sony group embroiled in a long-running scandal after releasing a number of CDs using suspect… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/sony-sues-maker-mediamax-drm-system/

Symantec, AVG suffer problems

Vulnerabilities and false positives strike major products.
Vulnerabilities and false positives strike major products.Symantec users have been warned of some serious issues with archive handling, across a wide range of software produced by… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/symantec-avg-suffer-problems/

Microsoft opens security 'portal'

New site carries prevalence data, updates and malware resources.
New site carries prevalence data, updates and malware resources. Security teams at Microsoft have been busy this week, with the full unveiling of the Microsoft Malware Protection… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/microsoft-opens-security-portal/

7 flaws fixed in July Patch Tuesday release

Critical patches issued for Excel, Active Directory and .NET.
Critical patches issued for Excel, Active Directory and .NET.Microsoft has released a total of seven patches in its monthly 'Patch Tuesday' security update, with three of the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/7-flaws-fixed-july-patch-tuesday-release/

SEC brings case against pump-and-dump spammers

Scam spotted after spammed mail sent to SEC lawyer.
Scam spotted after spammed mail sent to SEC lawyer. Two men from Texas have been charged with a range of spam and fraud offences after a 20-month campaign using botnets to spam… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/sec-brings-case-against-pump-and-dump-spammers/

Controversy over IE-to-Firefox exploit

MS and Mozilla in row over blame for cross-browser attack.
MS and Mozilla in row over blame for cross-browser attack. An exploit which involves browsing to a malicious website using Internet Explorer, but then launches an attack via a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/controversy-over-ie-firefox-exploit/

Spoof Spamhaus ads spammed out

Mail campaign claims to promote spam fighters.
Mail campaign claims to promote spam fighters. Spam-fighting organisation Spamhaus has been subjected to an attack on its reputation this week, with a sizeable campaign of spams… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/spoof-spamhaus-ads-spammed-out/

Trojan using webmail to send spam

Captcha systems possibly cracked to automate account creation.
Captcha systems possibly cracked to automate account creation.BitDefender has reported a new trojan attempting to bypass security measures on leading webmail systems Hotmail and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/trojan-using-webmail-send-spam/

Kaspersky sues Rising

Feuding AV firms to fight it out in court.
Feuding AV firms to fight it out in court.Kaspersky's Chinese subsidiary has brought a court case against local rival Rising, after an escalating war of words between the two… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/kaspersky-sues-rising/

Fake malware infection alerts spammed out

Latest spam run masquerades as malware warning and fix.
Latest spam run masquerades as malware warning and fix. The group behind last week's Fourth of July spams are thought to be behind another campaign this week, with messages… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/fake-malware-infection-alerts-spammed-out/

Google buys Postini

Managed security service snapped up by giant.
Managed security service snapped up by giant. Ever-expanding web giant Google has continued its growth into both security and software-as-service spheres with the $625 million… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/google-buys-postini/

Fourth of July targeted by trojan spam

Celebration card emails carry links to malware.
Celebration card emails carry links to malware. A further wave of greetings-card spam has been widely seeded, in the wake of considerable Storm Worm activity in the last week, with… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/fourth-july-targeted-trojan-spam/

Battle over Blackberry spyware threat

Spy tool for popular device claims to be legitimate.
Spy tool for popular device claims to be legitimate. The expansion of the FlexiSpy mobile device snooping software, originally available only for the Symbian platform but with… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/battle-over-blackberry-spyware-threat/

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