VB Blog

To make Tor work better on the web, we need to be honest about it

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 6, 2016

Many websites put barriers in front of visitors who use the Tor network. If we want to make the web more accessible through Tor, we need to be honest about why this is done, rather than cry wolf about a dislike for privacy, Martijn Grooten says.

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Paper: How It Works: Steganography Hides Malware in Image Files

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 28, 2016

A new paper by CYREN researcher Lordian Mosuela takes a close look at Gatak, or Stegoloader, a piece of malware that was discovered last year and that is controlled via malicious code embedded in a PNG image, a technique known as steganography.

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Paying a malware ransom is bad, but telling people never to do it is unhelpful advice

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 26, 2016

The current ransomware plague is one of the worst threats the Internet has seen and it is unlikely to go away any time soon. But telling people to never pay the ransom is unhelpful advice.

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VB2015 paper: VolatilityBot: Malicious Code Extraction Made by and for Security Researchers

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 22, 2016

In his VB2015 paper, Martin Korman presented his 'VolatilyBot' tool, which extracts malicious code from packed binaries, leveraging the functionality of the Volatility Framework.

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VB2016 programme announced, registration opened

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 21, 2016

We have announced 37 papers (and four reserve papers) that will be presented at VB2016 in Denver, Colorado, USA in October. Registration for the conference has opened; make sure you register before 1 July to benefit from a 10% early bird discount.

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New tool helps ransomware victims indentify the malware family

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 15, 2016

The people behind the MalwareHunterTeam have released a tool that helps victims of ransomware identify which of more than 50 families has infected their system, something which could help them find a tool to decrypt their files.

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It's fine for vulnerabilities to have names — we just need not to take them too seriously

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 13, 2016

The PR campaign around the Badlock vulnerability backfired when it turned out that the vulnerability wasn't as serious as had been suggested. But naming vulnerabilities can actually be helpful and certainly shouldn't hurt.

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Throwback Thursday: The Number of the Beasts

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Apr 7, 2016

The Virus Bulletin Virus Prevalence Table, which ran from 1992 until 2013, gave users a regular snapshot of what was really going on in the virus (and later malware) world, recording the number of incidents of each virus reported to VB in the preceding month. In August 2000, Denis Zenkin, a self-confessed virus prevalence table junkie, shared his findings following a study of the virus prevalence tables over the preceding few years, allowing him to determine the top ten viruses of the period, the top viruses by type and the viruses of the year.

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Paper: All Your Meetings Are Belong to Us: Remote Code Execution in Apache OpenMeetings

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Mar 30, 2016

Security researcher Andreas Lindh recently found a vulnerability in Apache OpenMeetings that could allow remote code execution on a vulnerable server. Andreas reported the vulnerability to the OpenMeetings developers and, once it had been patched, he wrote up the details.

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Throwback Thursday: 'In the Beginning was the Word...'

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Mar 24, 2016

Word and Excel’s internal file formats used to be something in which few were interested – until macro viruses came along and changed all that. In 1996, Andrew Krukov provided an overview of the new breed of viruses.

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VB2019 paper: Play fuzzing machine - hunting iOS and macOS kernel vulnerabilities automatically and smartly

In a paper presented at VB2019 in London, Trend Micro researchers Lilang Wu and Moony Li explained how the hunt for vulnerabilities in MacOS and iOS operating systems can be made both smarter and more automatic. Today we publish both their paper and the r…
Apple’s MacOS and iOS operating systems are often praised for their security. Yet vulnerabilities in both operating systems are regularly being found and exploited, especially by… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2020/03/vb2019-paper-play-fuzzing-machine-hunting-ios-and-macos-kernel-vulnerabilities-automatically-and-smartly/

AV-Test.org unveils latest results

Trend Micro achieves pass; Microsoft and McAfee fail to reach certification standards.
Trend Micro achieves pass; Microsoft and McAfee fail to reach certification standards. Independent testing body AV-Test.org has released its latest set of quarterly test results,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2010/11/av-test-org-unveils-latest-results/

AV-Test.org issues latest round of testing results

Symantec and Microsoft outdo Trend and McAfee in live tests.
Symantec and Microsoft outdo Trend and McAfee in live tests. Independent testing organisation AV-Test.org has released its latest round of test results in a simplified format,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2010/08/av-test-org-issues-latest-round-testing-results/

Tough weekend for AV giants as FPs and DNS issues hit

Trend false alert cripples users' systems, Sophos sites taken out by DNS mixup.
Trend false alert cripples users' systems, Sophos sites taken out by DNS mixup. Two of the larger security firms, Trend Micro and Sophos, had a busy weekend cleaning up after… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/09/tough-weekend-av-giants-fps-and-dns-issues-hit/

Trend OfficeScan flaws labelled highly critical

Web-delivered products at risk of allowing remote access.
Web-delivered products at risk of allowing remote access. A set of vulnerabilities have been reported in Trend Micro's Officescan product, which have been flagged with the 'Highly… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/08/trend-officescan-flaws-labelled-highly-critical/

More 'trusted sites' carrying iframe danger

Big wave of website infections could affect tens of thousands of sites, Trend Micro latest victim.
Big wave of website infections could affect tens of thousands of sites, Trend Micro latest victim. Earlier this week McAfee reported a major outbreak of website infections, with as… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/03/more-trusted-sites-carrying-iframe-danger/

Trend Micro buys email encryption firm

UK company taken over by security giant.
UK company taken over by security giant. Global security superpower Trend Micro has invested in a small email encryption firm based in Bristol, UK. The company, Identum, emerged… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/trend-micro-buys-email-encryption-firm/

Vista SP1 clashing with AV products

Service Pack causing issues for several security suites.
Service Pack causing issues for several security suites.Microsoft has released details of several software products that are known to have problems running in conjunction with… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/vista-sp1-clashing-av-products/

Meta-phishing

Phishing warning contains link to... phishing site.
Phishing warning contains link to... phishing site. The anti-malware industry can congratulate itself for there being an increasing awareness among users about phishing. Users are… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/meta-phishing/

Trend vs. ClamAV patent row hots up

Free software advocates call for boycott of Trend.
Free software advocates call for boycott of Trend. With legal proceedings ongoing between Trend Micro and gateway appliance specialist Barracuda Networks, concerning Barracuda's… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/trend-vs-clamav-patent-row-hots/

Barracuda battles Trend Micro patent claims

Trend demands licensing for gateway virus scanning idea.
Trend demands licensing for gateway virus scanning idea.Barracuda Networks has announced it is fighting a legal battle against Trend Micro, who has claimed US patent rights to the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/barracuda-battles-trend-micro-patent-claims/

Polyglot worm spreads through MSN

Worm changes language to target wide audience.
Worm changes language to target wide audience. A new worm has been discovered that spreads through MSN Messenger. Once active, the worm opens random TCP ports to connect to an IRC… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/polyglot-worm-spreads-through-msn/

Ledger poisons Google

Actor's death exploited by malware writers to infect computers.
Actor's death exploited by malware writers to infect computers. The death of actor Heath Ledger on Tuesday had barely been confirmed a few hours when malicious websites started… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/ledger-poisons-google/

Trend Micro invests in leak-prevention firm

Further data security added to portfolio.
Further data security added to portfolio. Security giant Trend Micro has acquired California-based data leak prevention specialist Provilla, to add its data protection technologies… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/10/trend-micro-invests-leak-prevention-firm/

String of vulnerabilities found in ServerProtect

Several minor holes patched in Trend Micro corporate product.
Several minor holes patched in Trend Micro corporate product. A series of security issues have been reported in Trend Micro's ServerProtect server-level product, which could allow… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/08/string-vulnerabilities-found-serverprotect/

ZOO archive issues hit security vendors

Errors handling rare format patched by four AV and anti-spam products.
Errors handling rare format patched by four AV and anti-spam products. A researcher has revealed details of flawed implementation of a somewhat archaic archive format, .zoo, which… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/05/zoo-archive-issues-hit-security-vendors/

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