Virus Bulletin - February 2014


Editor: Helen Martin

Technical Consultant: John Hawes

Technical Editor: Morton Swimmer

Consulting Editors: Ian Whalley, Nick FitzGerald, Richard Ford, Edward Wilding

2014-02-03


Comment

It is time for defenders to go on the offence

‘Challenge [defenders] to take a penetration testing or exploit development class.' Andreas Lindh

Andreas Lindh - ISecure, Sweden

News

Law minister is former spammer

Indian government minister has a history of spamming, according to researcher.

Helen Martin - Virus Bulletin, UK

Cash for hacks

Hackers stand to gain from bug bounties and contests.

Helen Martin - Virus Bulletin, UK

Malware analyses

Getting one's hands dirty

Cross-platform execution is one of the promises of Java - but cross-platform infection is probably not what the designers had in mind. Nevertheless, it was clearly in the mind of the author of W32/Java.Grimy, a virus for the Windows platform, which infects Java class files. Peter Ferrie has the details.

Peter Ferrie - Microsoft, USA

Salted algorithm - part 2

Sality has been around for many years, yet it is still one of today’s most prevalent pieces of malware. Last month, Raul Alvarez described Sality’s algorithm, showing the strengths of its encryption, how it uses the stack as temporary memory for code manipulation, and some of its system configuration manipulation. In this follow up article, he continues to discuss some of the threads spawned by Sality.

Raul Alvarez - Fortinet, Canada

Inside W32.Xpaj.B’S infection – part 2

Xpaj.B is one of the most complex and sophisticated file infectors in the world. It is difficult to detect, disinfect and analyse. Liang Yuan provides a deep analysis of its infection.

Liang Yuan - Symantec, China

Feature

Needle in a haystack

Sometimes what looks like a genuine MP3 encoder library, and even works as a functional encoder, actually hides malicious code deep amongst a pile of clean code. Gabor Szappanos reveals the lengths to which one piece of malware goes to hide its tracks.

Gabor Szappanos - Sophos, Hungary

Book reviews

Don't forget to write

Industry veteran, prolific writer and educator David Harley reviews two recently published eBooks that aim to provide security guidance for consumers: Improve Your Security by Sorin Mustaca, and One Parent to Another by Tony Anscombe.

David Harley - ESET, UK

Spotlight

Greetz from academe: Full frontal

In the latest of his ‘Greetz from Academe’ series, highlighting some of the work going on in academic circles, John Aycock looks at a piece of research that reveals an anti-virus design vulnerability that leaves several of the major anti-virus products open to attack.

John Aycock - University of Calgary, Canada

Comparative review

VB100 comparative review on Ubuntu Server 12.04LTS

For the first time in living memory, this test saw a clean sweep of certification passes, with all products reaching the required standard for a VB100 badge, and most also doing well in terms of stability. John Hawes has all the details.

John Hawes - Virus Bulletin

Calendar

Anti-malware industry events

Must-attend events in the anti-malware industry - dates, locations and further details.


 

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