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

VB2006 a resounding success - VB2007 dates revealed

As another VB conference comes to a close, dates for next year's conference are revealed.
As another VB conference comes to a close, dates for next year's conference are revealed. VB2006, which took place in Montréal last week has been declared a resounding success by… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/resounding-success-dates-revealed/

Met warns Haxdoor victims

Police notify 2,300 their details have been stolen.
Police notify 2,300 their details have been stolen. London's Metropolitan Police has contacted over 2,300 computer users to inform them that their details have been found on a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/met-warns-haxdoor-victims/

Domain name threat to Spamhaus

Anti-spam system at risk of losing identity.
Anti-spam system at risk of losing identity. The recent case in which a US court found anti-spam organisation Spamhaus guilty of mislabelling a company as spammers may take a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/domain-name-threat-spamhaus/

McAfee stock scandal claims bosses

CEO leaves, president fired over financial problems.
CEO leaves, president fired over financial problems. Investigations into irregularities in McAfee's finances have led to the resignation of the company CEO and board chairman… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/mcafee-stock-scandal-claims-bosses/

False false positives

BitDefender defends reputation, three more VB100% awards granted.
BitDefender defends reputation, three more VB100% awards granted. Since the publication of the recent VB100% results, several of the files from the clean test set causing false… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/false-false-positives/

Hormel denied spam copyright

EU court rejects trademark dispute.
EU court rejects trademark dispute.Hormel Foods, maker of the SPAM pressed meat product, has lost a case brought before the European 'Office for Harmonization of Internal Markets'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/hormel-denied-spam-copyright/

Eight years for Russian DoS blackmailers

Extortion gang sentenced for gambling site attacks.
Extortion gang sentenced for gambling site attacks. A team of three found guilty of computer crimes and extortion have been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by a Russian… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/eight-years-russian-dos-blackmailers/

Tesco to sell budget AV product

UK supermarket giant enters software market.
UK supermarket giant enters software market. The UK's largest supermarket chain, Tesco, has announced plans to sell and support its own-brand range of low-budget software products,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/tesco-sell-budget-av-product/

Stration worm building steadily

Mass-mailer evolving as botnets spread.
Mass-mailer evolving as botnets spread. The Stration mass-mailing worm, also called Warezov by some vendors, has been spreading steadily over the last few weeks, with the creators… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/stration-worm-building-steadily/

Gmail slashes spam FPs

Hotmail lagging behind on mislabelled ham.
Hotmail lagging behind on mislabelled ham. 'Email marketing' firm Lyris has released a study of spam false positive filtering, showing a general downward trend in falsely blocked… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/gmail-slashes-spam-fps/

Web community fights phishing

Vote-based anti-phish system launched.
Vote-based anti-phish system launched. A new database of phishing sites has been launched, with an open-source, community focus. The system, labelled PhishTank, is run by web firm… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/web-community-fights-phishing/

Trend, McAfee vulnerabilities disclosed

ActiveX and ePO flaws covered by patches.
ActiveX and ePO flaws covered by patches.Trend Micro's flagship OfficeScan Corporate Edition 7.3 has suffered a vulnerability, allowing code execution from the local network. The… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/trend-mcafee-vulnerabilities-disclosed/

McAfee joins Vista battle

Newspaper ad attacks Microsoft plans.
Newspaper ad attacks Microsoft plans.McAfee has joined Symantec on the warpath against Microsoft's plans for its forthcoming Vista release of Windows. In a full-page advertisement… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/mcafee-joins-vista-battle/

NCSA launches security month

Watchdog kicks off awareness offensive.
Watchdog kicks off awareness offensive. US online safety organisation the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) has launched its latest public information campaign, labelling… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/ncsa-launches-security-month/

More spammers nabbed by Earthlink

ISP helps FBI track down spamming duo.
ISP helps FBI track down spamming duo. Two men pleaded guilty to spamming in a Miami court last week. The pair were accused of sending over 25,000 emails over a period of a month… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/more-spammers-nabbed-earthlink/

IE punctured yet again

Newly patched browser vulnerable to more malware.
Newly patched browser vulnerable to more malware.Microsoft's beleaguered Internet Explorer browser is once again the subject of security worries, as another fully functioning… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/ie-punctured-yet-again/

News round-up

September's goings on in the AV industry.
September's goings on in the AV industry. The top news stories of September were undoubtedly those concerning the VML vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Not only was… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/news-round/

October

Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/

October issue of VB published

The October issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download.
The October issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download. The October 2006 issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to browse online or… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/october-issue-vb-published/

Phishers indicted

Six men charged with masterminding a phishing operation.
Six men charged with masterminding a phishing operation. Six US men have been indicted on charges of masterminding a phishing operation. According to the indictment, the six men… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/10/phishers-indicted/

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