VB Blog

VB2019 paper: Absolutely routed!! Why routers are the new bullseye in cyber attacks

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 18, 2019

Today we publish the VB2019 paper by Anurag Shandilya (K7 Computing) who looked at recent malware attacks against routers, as well as the video of his presentation in London.

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Parting thoughts 1: cybersecurity as a social science

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 17, 2019

In the first of a five-part series of blog post, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why he believes cybersecurity isn't as much as technical field as we like to believe.

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VB2020 call for papers - now open!

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 16, 2019

Have you analysed a new online threat? Do you know a new way to defend against such threats? Are you tasked with securing systems and fending off attacks? The call for papers for VB2020 is now open and we want to hear from you!

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VB2019 paper: Operation Soft Cell - a worldwide campaign against telecommunication providers

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 13, 2019

Today we publish the VB2019 paper by Cybereason researchers Mor Levi, Amit Serper and Assaf Dahan on Operation Soft Cell, a targeted attack against telecom providers around the world.

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VB2019 paper: A study of Machete cyber espionage operations in Latin America

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 10, 2019

At VB2019 in London a group of researchers from the Stratosphere Lab at the Czech Technical University in Prague presented a paper in which they analysed and dissected the cyber espionage activities of an APT group in Latin America through the analysis of one of its tools, known as Machete. Today we publish their paper and the recording of their presentation.

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VB2019 paper: The push from fiction for increased surveillance, and its impact on privacy

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Dec 5, 2019

In a paper presented at VB2019 in London, researchers Miriam Cihodariu (Heimdal Security) and Andrei Bogdan Brad (Code4Romania) looked at how surveillance is represented in fiction and how these representations are shaping people's attitudes to surveillance in current legal debates. Today we publish both their paper and the recording of Miriam presenting the paper in London.

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VB2019 paper: Oops! It happened again!

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Dec 3, 2019

At VB2019 in London industry veterans Righard Zwienenberg and Eddy Willems took a detailed look at the relationship between past and current cyber threats. Today, we publish both their paper and the recording of their presentation.

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Job vacancy at VB: Security Evangelist

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 29, 2019

Virus Bulletin is recruiting for a person to be the public face of the company

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VB2019 video: Thwarting Emotet email conversation thread hijacking with clustering

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 29, 2019

At VB2019 in London, ZEROSPAM researchers Pierre-Luc Vaudry and Olivier Coutu discussed how email clustering could be used to detect malicious Emotet emails that hijacked existing email threads. Today we publish the recording of their presentation.

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VB2019 paper: A vine climbing over the Great Firewall: a long-term attack against China

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 28, 2019

Today we publish a VB2019 paper from Lion Gu and Bowen Pan from the Qi An Xin Threat Intelligence Center in China in which they analysed an APT group dubbed 'Poison Vine', which targeted various government, military and research institutes in China.

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VB2017 video: Client Maximus raises the bar

At VB2017, IBM Trusteer researcher Omer Agmon, presented a 'last-minute' paper in which he analysed the Client Maximum trojan, which targets Brazilian users of online banking. Today, we release the recording of his presentation.
Brazil has long been known as a hotbed of cybercrime, but what makes the country especially unique is that a lot of this cybercrime is inwards-focused. Thus there are many malware… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/08/vb2017-video-client-maximus-raises-bar/

MnuBot banking trojan communicates via SQL server

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.
Researchers at IBM X-Force have discovered a new banking trojan, dubbed 'MnuBot', which is targeting Internet users in Brazil. The trojan performs tasks common to banking… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/05/mnubot-banking-trojan-communicates-sql-server/

VB2017 video: Turning Trickbot: decoding an encrypted command-and-control channel

Trickbot, a banking trojan which appeared this year, seems to be a new, more modular, and more extensible malware descendant of the notorious Dyre botnet trojan. At VB2017, Symantec researcher Andrew Brandt presented a walkthrough of a typical Trickbot in…
Trickbot, first reported a year ago by Malwarebytes researcher Jérôme Segura as the successor of Dyre/Dyreza, has become perhaps the most important banking trojan of 2017. It is… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/11/vb2017-video-turning-trickbot-decoding-encrypted-command-and-control-channel/

VB2016 paper: Diving into Pinkslipbot's latest campaign

Qakbot or Qbot, is a banking trojan that makes the news every once in a while and was the subject of a VB2016 paper by Intel Security researchers Sanchit Karve, Guilherme Venere and Mark Olea. In it, they provided a detailed analysis of the Pinkslipbot/Qa…
Pinkslipbot, also known as Qakbot or Qbot, is a banking trojan that makes the news every once in a while, yet never seems to get the attention of the world's Zbots and Dridexes. I… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/06/vb2016-paper-diving-pinkslipbots-latest-campaign/

VB2016 video: Nymaim: the Untold Story

Until very recently, the Nymaim banking trojan was a serious problem in Poland. Today, we publish the video of the VB2016 presentation by CERT Polska researchers Jarosław Jedynak and Maciej Kotowicz, in which they analyse this malware-dropper-turned-banki…
Every year, the Virus Bulletin conference programme includes a number of 'last-minute' papers: presentations on topics that are so hot, they are added to the programme only a few… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/02/vb2016-video-nymaim-untold-story/

VB2016 video: Neverquest: Crime as a Service and On the Hunt for the Big Bucks

At VB2016, Peter Kruse gave a presentation detailing the Neverquest trojan, the alleged author of which was arrested in Spain earlier this month. Today, we publish the recording of Peter's presentation.
Earlier this month, Spanish police officers arrested a Russian national on suspicion of creating the Neverquest banking trojan. Neverquest, also known as Vawtrak, is one of the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/01/vb2016-video-neverquest-crime-service-and-hunt-big-bucks/

VB2016 paper: Modern attacks on Russian financial institutions

Today, we publish the VB2016 paper and presentation (recording) by ESET researchers Jean-Ian Boutin and Anton Cherepanov, in which they look at sophisticated attacks against Russian financial institutions.
Today, we publish the VB2016 paper "Modern attacks on Russian financial institutions" (here in HTML format and here in PDF format) by ESET researchers Jean-Ian Boutin and Anton… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/december/vb2016-paper-modern-attacks-russian-financial-institutions/

When it comes to online banking, sub-optimal encryption isn't our biggest concern

Malware authors and scammers won't attack the crypto.
Malware authors and scammers won't attack the crypto. Under the headline "no zero-day necessary", Xiphos has published a rather scary blog post on the state of SSL security within… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/01/when-it-comes-online-banking-sub-optimal-encryption-isn-t-our-biggest-concern/

VB2015 video: Making a dent in Russian mobile banking phishing

Sebastian Porst explains what Google has done to protect users from phishing apps targeting Russian banks.
Sebastian Porst explains what Google has done to protect users from phishing apps targeting Russian banks. In the last few years, mobile malware has evolved from a mostly… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/12/video-making-dent-russian-mobile-banking-phishing/

POODLE is the brown M&Ms of security

Just because it won't be exploited, doesn't mean you shouldn't patch it.
Just because it won't be exploited, doesn't mean you shouldn't patch it. There is a famous story about the rock band Van Halen whose lists of requirements when performing a show… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/04/poodle-brown-m-amp-ms-security/

Does it matter if my banking password is 'Prague'?

Users do choose weak passwords, but they aren't as big a problem as we think.
Users do choose weak passwords, but they aren't as big a problem as we think. This week, I spent a few days at the Cyber Security Summit Financial Services conference in Prague,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/04/does-it-matter-if-my-banking-password-prague/

Box-ticking mentality leads to insecurity

Credit card company fails to understand how authentication works.
Credit card company fails to understand how authentication works. Security experts often bemoan a 'box-ticking' mentality and argue that in many cases ticking boxes doesn't address… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2013/09/box-ticking-mentality-leads-insecurity/

Dutch citizens keep extra cash at hand following DDoS attacks

Month-long attacks had significant impact.
Month-long attacks had significant impact. 25% of Dutch citizens have followed advice to keep extra cash at home, following a recent spate of DDoS attacks on Dutch banks. At the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2013/05/dutch-citizens-keep-extra-cash-hand-following-ddos-attacks/

Trojan steals money from bank accounts via 'training session'

Social engineering circumvents banking security
Social engineering circumvents banking security In a new method of stealing money from customer accounts, a variant of the SpyEye trojan invites the user to make a supposedly… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/09/trojan-steals-money-bank-accounts-training-session/

Bank's Twitter account hacked to send phishing messages

Important lessons for companies engaging in social media.
Important lessons for companies engaging in social media. Last week, the Twitter account of the Bank of Melbourne was hacked and used to send direct messages containing phishing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/09/bank-s-twitter-account-hacked-send-phishing-messages/

Banking malware tells user to 'refund' money

Web injection used to suggest accidental transfer.
Web injection used to suggest accidental transfer. In a new twist to banking trojans, a piece of malware found on German computers tricks victims into believing a large amount has… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/08/banking-malware-tells-user-refund-money/

Trojan uses remote user account to control compromised machine

Malware targets customers of Brazilian banks.
Malware targets customers of Brazilian banks. Researchers at Kaspersky have discovered a piece of malware aimed at customers of Brazilian banks which creates a remote user account… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/07/trojan-uses-remote-user-account-control-compromised-machine/

Zitmo trojan for Android defeats two-factor authentication

Malware intercepts TANs sent via SMS.
Malware intercepts TANs sent via SMS. A new variant of the Zitmo trojan has been discovered that infects mobile devices running the Android platform and which intercepts SMS… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/07/zitmo-trojan-android-defeats-two-factor-authentication/

US court: passwords reasonable security for online banking

Security question considered second authentication factor.
Security question considered second authentication factor. A US court has declared that a combination of passwords and 'security questions' is an ample way for banks to protect… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/06/us-court-passwords-reasonable-security-online-banking/

Banking malware hosted on Amazon's cloud servers

Trojan targets mostly Brazilian banks.
Trojan targets mostly Brazilian banks. Researchers have discovered malware hosted on Amazon Web Services that steals victims' bank account data. Acting as a rootkit, the malware… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/06/banking-malware-hosted-amazon-s-cloud-servers/

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