Bulletin

An indispensable source of reference for anyone concerned with computer security, the Bulletin is the forum through which leading security researchers publish the latest security research and information in a bid to share knowledge with the security community. Publications cover the latest threats, new developments and techniques in the security landscape, opinions from respected members of the industry, and more. The Bulletin archives offer informative articles going back to 1989. Our editorial team is happy to hear from anyone interested in submitting a paper for publication.

VB2014 paper: Leaving our ZIP undone: how to abuse ZIP to deliver malware apps

Both Android and Java malware, delivered via ZIP-based packages, have reached high volumes in the wild, and continue to grow at a rapid rate. In his VB2014 paper, Gregory Panakkal explores the ZIP file format, focusing specifically on APK files as…

Read more  

Script in a lossy stream

Dénes Óvári describes a PoC file that demonstrates a new way to store data in PDF files.

Read more  

VB2014 paper: The pluginer - Caphaw

Neo Tan (Fortinet)
Micky Pun (Fortinet)

Caphaw, also known as Shylock, has been a quiet, yet persistent player on the botnet scene since 2011. It stands in great contrast to most botnet malware in that it was released with complete functionality rather than being released into the wild…

Read more  

VB2014 paper: P0wned by a barcode: stealing money from offline users

Fabio Assolini (Kaspersky Lab)

Brazilian bad guys have created a unique way of stealing money from people who prefer to keep their lives entirely offline. By altering ‘boletos’ - popular payment documents issued by banks and all kind of businesses in Brazil - cybercriminals have…

Read more  

VB2014 paper: We know it before you do: predicting malicious domains

Yanxin Zhang (Palo Alto Networks)

From distributing malware to hosting command and control servers and traffic distribution, malicious domains are essential to the success of nearly all popular attack vectors. Much effort has been put into building reputation-based malicious domain…

Read more  

VB2014 paper: Design to discover: security analytics with 3D visualization engine

Dhia Mahjoub (OpenDNS)
Thibault Reuille (OpenDNS)

Thibault Reuille, Dhia Mahjoub and Ping Yan use particle physics to shows clusters of malicious domains.

Read more  

Nesting doll: unwrapping Vawtrak

Banking trojan Vawtrak wraps itself in layers, each of which gives rise to the next until a simple binary executable is exposed. Raul Alvarez likens Vawtrak to a nesting doll and in this article he unpacks the doll, looking at each layer in turn.

Read more  

VB2014 paper: OPSEC for security researchers

Vicente Diaz (Kaspersky Lab)
Dani Creus (Kaspersky Lab)

It is not unheard of for researchers to be threatened by criminal gangs, or approached by intelligence services. On other occasions researchers have found themselves under surveillance or their devices have been compromised when on the road. What…

Read more  

VB2014 paper: Duping the machine - malware strategies, post sandbox detection

James Wyke (Sophos)

In his VB2014 paper, James Wyke explores the different strategies malicious samples employ when a sandbox has been detected. He looks at examples of decoy behaviour that range from dummy files being dropped to the use of fixed path names, bogus DNS…

Read more  

VB2014 paper: Attack surface analysis of the Tizen OS

Compared to Android, iOS and Blackberry, Tizen (an open-source platform designed for multiple computing platforms such as smartphones, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), smart TV, wearable devices, consumer electronics, etc.) offers several different…

Read more  

Search the Bulletin


Bulletin Archive

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.