VB Blog

Subtle change could see a reduction in installation of malicious Chrome extensions

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 13, 2018

Google has made a subtle change to its Chrome browser, banning the inline installation of new extensions, thus making it harder for malware authors to trick users into unwittingly installing malicious extensions.

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Paper: EternalBlue: a prominent threat actor of 2017–2018

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 11, 2018

We publish a paper by researchers from Quick Heal Security Labs in India, who study the EternalBlue and DoublePulsar exploits in full detail.

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'North Korea' a hot subject among VB2018 talks

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jun 1, 2018

Several VB2018 papers deal explicitly or implicitly with threats that have been attributed to North Korean actors.

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Expired domain led to SpamCannibal's blacklist eating the whole world

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 31, 2018

The domain of the little-used SpamCannibal DNS blacklist had expired, resulting in it effectively listing every single IP address.

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MnuBot banking trojan communicates via SQL server

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 30, 2018

Researchers at IBM X-Force have discovered MnuBot, a banking trojan targeting users in Brazil, which is noteworthy for using SQL Server for command and control communication.

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Throwback Thursday: Giving the EICAR test file some teeth

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 24, 2018

The 68-byte EICAR test file plays as important a role today as it did 19 years ago. In this week's Throwback Thursday we look back at a VB99 conference paper in which Randy Abrams described how this 'miracle tool' worked and how it could be used.

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XMRig used in new macOS cryptominer

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 23, 2018

A new piece of cryptocurrency-mining malware on macOS has been found to use the popular XMRig miner.

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Tendency for DDoS attacks to become less volumetric fits in a wider trend

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 22, 2018

CDN provider Cloudflare reports an increase in DDoS attacks targeting layer 7 and focusing on exhausting server resources rather than sending large volumes of data. This fits in a wider trend.

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Turkish Twitter users targeted with mobile FinFisher spyware

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 15, 2018

Through fake social media accounts, users were tricked into installing an Android application that was actually a mobile version of the FinFisher spyware.

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Hide'n'Seek IoT botnet adds persistence

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 9, 2018

The Hide'n'Seek IoT botnet has received an update to make its infection persist on infected devices beyond a restart.

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Search blog

Symbian worm sighted in the wild

Malware pretends to be media or image file.
Malware pretends to be media or image file. A new worm has been sighted in the wild that operates on the Symbian operating system, which is used on many mobile phones. The worm,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/symbian-worm-sighted-wild/

US agencies report vishing, extortion, danger of hacking

FBI name used in email attacks, CIA warns of power supply hacks.
FBI name used in email attacks, CIA warns of power supply hacks. US security and law enforcement agencies were more than usually active in the computer security world last week,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/us-agencies-report-vishing-extortion-danger-hacking/

Google links scam Avira users

Suspect firm advertising via Google found to be specialising in hijacking security brands.
Suspect firm advertising via Google found to be specialising in hijacking security brands.Google searches for Avira and the company's anti-malware product Antivir, a free version… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/google-links-scam-avira-users/

Microsoft alert on Excel vulnerability

Targeted exploitation of zero-day flaw seen in wild.
Targeted exploitation of zero-day flaw seen in wild.Microsoft has issued a security advisory on an unresolved vulnerability in its Excel software, which has been reported as a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/microsoft-alert-excel-vulnerability/

Help for victims of e-crime

Cybercrime support website launched.
Cybercrime support website launched. A website dedicated to helping victims of online crime and other incidents has been launched in the UK. The site, www.e-victims.org, aims to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/help-victims-e-crime/

Malcode from Mexico and Africa predicted to boom

Developing world expected to contribute heavily to future cybercrime.
Developing world expected to contribute heavily to future cybercrime. A report from F-Secure has predicted increasing levels of malware creation and operation in 'developing'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/malcode-mexico-and-africa-predicted-boom/

Stormy love letters

Storm botnet celebrates birthday with new wave of spam.
Storm botnet celebrates birthday with new wave of spam. Earlier this week malware experts warned of likely increased activity of the Storm botnet around Valentine's Day next month.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/stormy-love-letters/

Phishing danger increases as Storm botnet is hired out

Smart new trojan and Storm diversification add to online banking risk.
Smart new trojan and Storm diversification add to online banking risk. The dangers of banking online grew significantly in past weeks, as portions of the ever-expanding Storm… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/phishing-danger-increases-storm-botnet-hired-out/

Rogue anti-malware targets Mac users

Scam expands horizons to draw in new market of victims.
Scam expands horizons to draw in new market of victims. The rogue anti-malware scam, in which fake anti-spyware and anti-virus products are inveigled into victims' machines,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/rogue-anti-malware-targets-mac-users/

Spam printing proof-of-concept revealed

Lack of security allows websites to send spammish content to network printers.
Lack of security allows websites to send spammish content to network printers. Opening your inbox on a Monday morning and finding out that it's full of spam is bad enough already,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/spam-printing-proof-concept-revealed/

Hundreds of legitimate websites being hacked into

New mass infection leaves security researchers puzzled.
New mass infection leaves security researchers puzzled. Web security company ScanSafe has reported a new mass infection of websites, which it claims accounts for 15% of the web… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/hundreds-legitimate-websites-being-hacked/

Batch of Dutch MP3 players ships with malware

Worm included as unwanted extra for music lovers.
Worm included as unwanted extra for music lovers. A shipment of MP3 players sold in recent months by Dutch firm Victory has been found to be infected with the Fujacks worm, which… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/batch-dutch-mp3-players-ships-malware/

Usual fare for holiday season

Storm ecards and social site spyware mark unsurprising year end.
Storm ecards and social site spyware mark unsurprising year end. With large portions of the globe celebrating various festivals over the past few weeks, an expected upsurge in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/usual-fare-holiday-season/

SQL attack hacks wide range of sites

CA among victims of major attack linking sites to malware.
CA among victims of major attack linking sites to malware. Huge numbers of legitimate websites - perhaps as many as 100,000 according to some reports - fell victim to hackers… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/sql-attack-hacks-wide-range-sites/

January

Anti-virus and security related news provided by independent anti-virus advisors, Virus Bulletin
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/

More rogue Flash ads

Rogue ads infiltrate Expedia and Rhapsody sites.
Rogue ads infiltrate Expedia and Rhapsody sites. Following on from last month's feature on the SWF.AdHijack family (see VB, January 2008, p.12), malicious Flash ads were found to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/more-rogue-flash-ads/

January issue of VB published

The January issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download.
The January issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to download. The January 2008 issue of Virus Bulletin is now available for subscribers to browse online or… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/january-issue-vb-published/

FTC notes malicious spam on the rise

FTC reports on a decade of spam fighting.
FTC reports on a decade of spam fighting. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released a report reflecting on the ten years in which it has been involved in the fight… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/ftc-notes-malicious-spam-rise/

All in the name

Grisoft becomes AVG.
Grisoft becomes AVG. Last month, Czech firm Grisoft, developer of widely used anti-malware product AVG, changed its corporate name to AVG Technologies CZ, s.r.o. Having operated… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/all-name/

No taste for spam?

ICANN takes steps to combat domain tasting.
ICANN takes steps to combat domain tasting. The practice of domain tasting, often used by spammers and other shady types to register tens of thousands of Internet domain names at… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/no-taste-spam/

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