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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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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