VB Blog

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

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 26, 2016

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.

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

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 22, 2016

In his VB2015 paper, Martin Korman presented his 'VolatilyBot' tool, which extracts malicious code from packed binaries, leveraging the functionality of the Volatility Framework.

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VB2016 programme announced, registration opened

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 21, 2016

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.

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New tool helps ransomware victims indentify the malware family

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 15, 2016

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.

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

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 13, 2016

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.

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Throwback Thursday: The Number of the Beasts

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Apr 7, 2016

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 month. In August 2000, Denis Zenkin, a self-confessed virus prevalence table junkie, shared his findings following a study of the virus prevalence tables over the preceding few years, allowing him to determine the top ten viruses of the period, the top viruses by type and the viruses of the year.

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

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Mar 30, 2016

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 wrote up the details.

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

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Mar 24, 2016

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.

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VB2016 Call for Papers Deadline

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Mar 18, 2016

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.

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How broken is SHA-1 really?

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Mar 15, 2016

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 outdated hash functions.

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Search blog

Smartphone security sphere to reach $5 billion by 2011

Market analysts foresee boom in mobile threats and security market.
Market analysts foresee boom in mobile threats and security market. UK-based telecoms analyst Juniper Research has released a report predicting a steady rise in attacks on… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/smartphone-security-sphere-reach-5-billion-2011/

MIME tricks beat email virus scanners

Simple encoding dodges slip malware past gateways.
Simple encoding dodges slip malware past gateways. A security researcher released a report last week claiming that some simple manipulation allowed him to get mails containing the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/mime-tricks-beat-email-virus-scanners/

Adobe hit by second vulnerability

More document software security worries.
More document software security worries. PDF software giant Adobe has released details of its second vulnerability in little over a week. The first, which was discovered in the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/adobe-hit-second-vulnerability/

Anti-spyware activists condemn rogue MP3 search firm

CDT and StopBadware unite in call for action against spyware pushers.
CDT and StopBadware unite in call for action against spyware pushers. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and StopBadware.org have issued a joint complaint to the Federal… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/anti-spyware-activists-condemn-rogue-mp3-search-firm/

Trojan spreading mobile spyware

Consumer phone-snooping tool dropped by Symbian malware.
Consumer phone-snooping tool dropped by Symbian malware. A new variant of the MultiDropper trojan targeting Symbian smartphones has included amongst its payload a 'legitimate'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/trojan-spreading-mobile-spyware/

Free firewalls rated best in leak tests

Leakage review puts Comodo, Jetico way ahead of field.
Leakage review puts Comodo, Jetico way ahead of field. An in-depth study subjecting 23 different personal firewall products to a range of leak tests has granted two free products,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/free-firewalls-rated-best-leak-tests/

Mobile spam wave hits Europe

Multilingual SMS spams reported.
Multilingual SMS spams reported. Mobile security researchers at F-Secure have received numerous reports of SMS spams from across Europe, in a variety of languages. Links in the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/mobile-spam-wave-hits-europe/

MS Word zero-day exploit seen in wild

Microsoft warns of attacks using vulnerability.
Microsoft warns of attacks using vulnerability.Microsoft has issued a security bulletin warning of a serious vulnerability discovered in several versions of Microsoft Word and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/ms-word-zero-day-exploit-seen-wild/

Firm charged $1 million in rogue spyware case

Heavy fines and fees hit fake 'Spyware Cleaner' pushers.
Heavy fines and fees hit fake 'Spyware Cleaner' pushers. A Seattle court has announced a $1 million settlement in a case brought against a spyware firm, marking the first… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/firm-charged-1-million-rogue-spyware-case/

EU to fund Symantec phishing studies

Security firm in consortium researching phishing prevention.
Security firm in consortium researching phishing prevention.Symantec announced yesterday an award of funding from the European Commission to pay for research into securing email… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/eu-fund-symantec-phishing-studies/

MySpace hit by worm, adware and phishing

Exploit in QuickTime file infecting social site profile pages.
Exploit in QuickTime file infecting social site profile pages. A malicious QuickTime movie file is spreading across social networking site MySpace, embedding itself in the user… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/myspace-hit-worm-adware-and-phishing/

China source of huge phishing surge

Spam watchers see major jump in scam spam sent from China
Spam watchers see major jump in scam spam sent from China Analysts at email and web security firm Marshal have reported a major spike in the numbers of phishing email originating… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/china-source-huge-phishing-surge/

Vista launched, malware still a danger

New Windows version on sale, but viruses remain a threat, says Sophos
New Windows version on sale, but viruses remain a threat, says Sophos The corporate version Microsoft's long-awaited update to its Windows operating system was finally released… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/vista-launched-malware-still-danger/

Festive greetings

Yuletide wishes.
Yuletide wishes. The VB team wishes all Virus Bulletin readers a very happy Christmas and a prosperous and peaceful new year. This year, continuing the tradition of its Christmas… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/festive-greetings/

Anti-spammer loses case

Anti-spam activist sued in case that brings enforceability of state anti-spam laws into question.
Anti-spam activist sued in case that brings enforceability of state anti-spam laws into question. An anti-spam activist has successfully been sued in a US federal court by the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/anti-spammer-loses-case/

In the picture?

Remember VB94?
Remember VB94? Were you at VB94 in Jersey? VB has unearthed some photos taken at the fourth Virus Bulletin Conference. To see those who were the fresh faces of the anti-virus… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/picture/

Stocking filler

Collection of 419 baiting tales.
Collection of 419 baiting tales. If you're stuck for a last-minute Christmas gift idea, Mike Berry's new book could be the answer. Mike Berry is the creator of 'scam-baiting'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/stocking-filler/

December

Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/

December issue of VB published

The December issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download.
The December issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download. The December 2006 issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to browse online or… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/12/december-issue-vb-published/

Vulnerability hits F-Secure gateway products

Flaw in OpenSSL could allow DoS on servers.
Flaw in OpenSSL could allow DoS on servers. A vulnerability in OpenSSL software, used to access the administration interface in some F-Secure gateway and mail protection products,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/11/vulnerability-hits-f-secure-gateway-products/

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