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

Spammer's appeal rejected

Weaselboy conviction upheld.
Weaselboy conviction upheld. The man who is the UK's biggest - and possibly nastiest - spammer has failed in his appeal to overturn two of his convictions. Back in November 2005 a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/spammer-s-appeal-rejected/

McAfee tops for client security

Analyst firm rates industry heavyweights.
Analyst firm rates industry heavyweights. Analyst firm Forrester has released a report on 'Client Security Suites', naming McAfee as the leading brand in the field. Symantec and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/mcafee-tops-client-security/

More Microsoft vulnerability woes

PowerPoint problem tops off busy month for MS.
PowerPoint problem tops off busy month for MS. Yet another vulnerability has been revealed in a Microsoft product, this time in the PowerPoint slideshow software. The problem is… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/more-microsoft-vulnerability-woes/

AOL phishers indicted

Team of six face jail in Connecticut.
Team of six face jail in Connecticut. A group of six men have been charged with phishing by a grand jury in Connecticut. The men allegedly harvested email addresses and spammed… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/aol-phishers-indicted/

Volvo syndrome for Mac users

Relative safety may lead to unsafe practices.
Relative safety may lead to unsafe practices.Symantec has issued a warning to Apple Macintosh users that they are still at risk from online threats, despite the relative scarcity… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/volvo-syndrome-mac-users/

Microsoft patches IE hole

VML fix released only a week after flaw exploited.
VML fix released only a week after flaw exploited.Microsoft has released a patch for the widely publicised and much exploited security hole in its Internet Explorer browser, a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/microsoft-patches-ie-hole/

Web trust symbol can't be trusted

Certificates sign of danger, says researcher.
Certificates sign of danger, says researcher. Website certification system Truste has been hit by a report claiming that sites bearing its certificates are more than twice as… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/web-trust-symbol-can-t-be-trusted/

Symantec, Kaspersky issue threat reports

Trojans, vulnerabilities, spam and crime loom large.
Trojans, vulnerabilities, spam and crime loom large.Symantec and Kaspersky have both released overviews of security dangers faced in the first half of 2006 this week, and both… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/symantec-kaspersky-issue-threat-reports/

Trend launches bot blocking service

Botnet-spotting system watches for bad DNS behaviour.
Botnet-spotting system watches for bad DNS behaviour.Trend Micro has launched a new service, entitled InterCloud Security Service (ICSS), to look out for bot infestations within… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/trend-launches-bot-blocking-service/

Vista issues worry vendors

Security firms complain about monopoly tactics.
Security firms complain about monopoly tactics. New security features to be included in the next version of Microsoft Windows continue to present difficulties for AV and other… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/vista-issues-worry-vendors/

More than 90% of email is spam

Spamhaus founder estimates spam levels significantly higher than other industry monitors.
Spamhaus founder estimates spam levels significantly higher than other industry monitors.Spamhaus founder Steve Linford estimates that spam accounts for more than 90% of all email… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/more-90-email-spam/

Unofficial VML patch released

Security task force issues stop-gap fix for IE hole.
Security task force issues stop-gap fix for IE hole. A team of security experts and reverse engineers have created a patch for the latest zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/unofficial-vml-patch-released/

Canadians row with Sony over DRM

Rootkit battles still going.
Rootkit battles still going. Canadian public interest body CIPPIC (The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, also known as Clinique d'intérêt public et de politique… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/canadians-row-sony-over-drm/

AV guru Jimmy Kuo heads to Microsoft

Industry veteran joins others from McAfee.
Industry veteran joins others from McAfee. Jimmy Kuo, the widely respected virus expert and popular speaker, has left McAfee after over ten years working in their AVERT labs, to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/av-guru-jimmy-kuo-heads-microsoft/

Zero-day exploit targeting IE flaw

'Extremely critical' buffer overflow used to drop spyware.
'Extremely critical' buffer overflow used to drop spyware. Researchers at anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software have reported an new attack actively exploiting another unpatched… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/zero-day-exploit-targeting-ie-flaw/

AIM worm warning

AOL IM users at risk from botnet-building attack.
AOL IM users at risk from botnet-building attack. Instant messaging security firm FaceTime Communications has issued an alert on a highly sophisticated blended attack targeting… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/aim-worm-warning/

Spam King sued again

Serial spammer charged with more spamming.
Serial spammer charged with more spamming. Software and security firm Infinite Monkeys & Company has announced that a lawsuit has been filed against 'Spam King' Scott Richter, head… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/spam-king-sued-again/

Google embarrassed by phishing demo

Fake Gmail site served by Google itself.
Fake Gmail site served by Google itself. Web search and service behemoth Google has had its security credibility hit this weekend, after a site was set up on its servers spoofing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/google-embarrassed-phishing-demo/

FTC shuts down spammers

Four spam companies hit by CAN-SPAM rulings.
Four spam companies hit by CAN-SPAM rulings. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stepped its anti-spam operations up a gear last week, shutting down four separate organisations… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/ftc-shuts-down-spammers/

Several backdoors in PDF revealed

Researcher lists security issues with document format.
Researcher lists security issues with document format. A researcher analysing the possibility of exploiting vulnerabilities in the Adobe PDF file format has released a lengthy list… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/several-backdoors-pdf-revealed/

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