Papers published in June 2015


Editor: Martijn Grooten

VB100 comparative review on Windows Server 2012 R2 64 bit

There was a pleasingly high pass rate in this server-based VB100 test, and along with it some fairly good stability ratings with no products falling below the ‘Fair’ category. John Hawes has the details.

John Hawes - Virus Bulletin

VB2014 paper: Quantifying maliciousness in Alexa top-ranked domains

There exist few studies that attempt to systematically quantify maliciousness in popular, long-lived websites. In his VB2014 paper, Paul Royal details the results of long-running experiments that identify maliciousness in top-ranked websites in a vulnerability- and exploit-independent manner.

Paul Royal - Barracuda Labs, USA

Using .NET GUIDs to help hunt for malware

During a long-term investigation, Brian Wallace discovered two forensic artefacts - both GUIDs - which can be used to determine whether multiple malware samples are from the same Visual Studio project, effectively identifying the family, and to identify samples that are the result of the same build, allowing for the identification of post-compilation modifications made by tools such as builders. Here, he describes his discoveries and how these new artefacts can help malware hunters around the world.

Brian Wallace - Cylance Inc., USA

Beta exploit pack: one more piece of crimeware for the infection road!

Beta BEP appears to be the latest exploit kit in development. After finding their way into a Beta BEP C&C panel, Aditya Sood and Rohit Bansal were able to gather intelligence about the structure and working of the exploit pack. Here they share their findings about the pack - which they believe we will start to see being used in the coming months.

Aditya K. Sood - Michigan State University, USA & Rohit Bansal - Independent Security Researcher, USA

Throwback Thursday: Macro Viruses - Part 1 (September 1999)

Everything you ever wanted to know about macro viruses but were afraid to ask! Dr Igor Muttik begins a series of articles dedicated to them.

Igor Muttik - AVERT Labs, UK

Throwback Thursday: Macro Viruses - Part 2 (October 1999)

Everything you ever wanted to know about macro viruses but were afraid to ask! In this part: WordBasic, VBA, up/down conversion and polymorphism.

Igor Muttik - AVERT Labs, UK

Throwback Thursday: Macro Viruses - Part 3 (November 1999)

Everything you ever wanted to know about macro viruses but were afraid to ask! In this part: mating, devolving, naming and prevalence.

Igor Muttik - AVERT Labs, UK

Throwback Thursday: Melissa – The Little Virus That Could... (May 1999)

Melissa caused havoc across the globe and hit the news headlines. Ian Whalley's full analysis cuts through the hype and reveals a rather ordinary Class-style infector.

Ian Whalley - Sophos, UK

Throwback Thursday: Virus Writers - Part 1 (May 1999)

Sarah Gordon has spent years researching the whys and wherefores of virus writing. The first instalment of her three-part feature attempts to explain the inexplicable.

Sarah Gordon - IBM Research

Throwback Thursday: Virus Writers - Part 2 (June 1999)

In the second part of her series of articles on virus writers, Sarah Gordon examines the question ‘How have they changed?’.

Sarah Gordon - IBM Research

Throwback Thursday: Virus Writers - Part 3 (July 1999)

So far in her series of articles on virus writers, Sarah Gordon has covered five of the most frequently asked questions concerning virus writers. In this, the third and final part of the series, she examines the question that seems to raise the most heated debate of all: why do they do it?

Sarah Gordon - IBM Research

Using .NET GUIDs to help hunt for malware

During a long-term investigation, Brian Wallace discovered two forensic artefacts - both GUIDs - which can be used to determine whether multiple malware samples are from the same Visual Studio project, effectively identifying the family, and to identify samples that are the result of the same build, allowing for the identification of post-compilation modifications made by tools such as builders. Here, he describes his discoveries and how these new artefacts can help malware hunters around the world.

Brian Wallace - Cylance Inc., USA

 

Latest articles:

Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

Aditya Sood & Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited to compromise the C&C panel in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

Cryptojacking on the fly: TeamTNT using NVIDIA drivers to mine cryptocurrency

TeamTNT is known for attacking insecure and vulnerable Kubernetes deployments in order to infiltrate organizations’ dedicated environments and transform them into attack launchpads. In this article Aditya Sood presents a new module introduced by…

Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

Collector-stealer, a piece of malware of Russian origin, is heavily used on the Internet to exfiltrate sensitive data from end-user systems and store it in its C&C panels. In this article, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360…

Fighting Fire with Fire

In 1989, Joe Wells encountered his first virus: Jerusalem. He disassembled the virus, and from that moment onward, was intrigued by the properties of these small pieces of self-replicating code. Joe Wells was an expert on computer viruses, was partly…

Run your malicious VBA macros anywhere!

Kurt Natvig wanted to understand whether it’s possible to recompile VBA macros to another language, which could then easily be ‘run’ on any gateway, thus revealing a sample’s true nature in a safe manner. In this article he explains how he recompiled…

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