VB Blog

Necurs pump-and-dump spam campaign pushes obscure cryptocurrency

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 16, 2018

A Necurs pump-and-dump spam campaign pushing the lesser known Swisscoin botnet is mostly background noise for the Internet.

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Alleged author of creepy FruitFly macOS malware arrested

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 11, 2018

A 28-year old man from Ohio has been arrested on suspicion of having created the mysterious FruitFly malware that targeted macOS and used it to spy on its victims.

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The threat and security product landscape in 2017

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 10, 2018

At the start of the new year, Virus Bulletin looks back at the threats seen in the 2017 and at the security products that are available to help mitigate them.

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Spamhaus report shows many botnet controllers look a lot like legitimate servers

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 9, 2018

Spamhaus's annual report on botnet activity shows that botherders tend to use popular, legitimate hosting providers, domain registrars and top-level domains when setting up command-and-control servers.

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Tips on researching tech support scams

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 5, 2018

As tech support scammers continue to target the computer illiterate through cold calling, VB's Martijn Grooten uses his own experience to share some advice on how to investigate such scams.

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Meltdown and Spectre attacks mitigated by operating system updates

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jan 4, 2018

Just four days into the new year, two serious attacks in modern processors, dubbed Meltdown and Spectre, have been discovered. The attacks can be mitigated by patches to the operating system, but anti-virus software vendors need to make sure their products are compatible with the patches.

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Conference review: AVAR 2017

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 22, 2017

Martijn Grooten reports on the 20th AVAR conference, which took place earlier in December in Beijing, China.

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Conference review: Botconf 2017

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Dec 22, 2017

Virus Bulletin researchers report back from a very interesting fifth edition of Botconf, the botnet fighting conference.

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VB2017 videos on attacks against Ukraine

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 21, 2017

(In)security is a global issue that affects countries around the world, but in recent years none has been so badly hit as Ukraine. Today, we publish the videos of two VB2017 talks about attacks that hit Ukraine particularly badly: a talk by Alexander Adamov (NioGuard) on (Not)Petya and related attacks, and another by Robert Lipovsky and Anton Cherepanov (ESET) on Industroyer.

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Facebook helps you determine whether emails really came from its servers

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 21, 2017

On its website, Facebook now shows which emails it has sent you recently, thus helping you to determine which emails are real, and which should be discarded as phishing.

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VB2017 paper: Exploring the virtual worlds of advergaming

At VB2017 in Madrid, Malwarebytes' Chris Boyd presented a paper in which he looked at various aspects of advergaming, from unreadable EULAs to fake programs that promise to block ads. Today, we publish both the paper and the recording of Chris's presentat…
At VB2016 in Denver, Malwarebytes researchers Jérôme Segura and Chris Boyd presented a paper on malicious advertising, or malvertising. At the end of the paper, as they looked at… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/04/vb2017-paper-exploring-virtual-worlds-advergaming/

VB2016 paper: Uncovering the secrets of malvertising

Malicious advertising, a.k.a. malvertising, has evolved tremendously over the past few years to take a central place in some of today’s largest web-based attacks. It is by far the tool of choice for attackers to reach the masses but also to target them wi…
In his VB2014 paper, Bromium researcher Vadim Kotov sketched the possibilities for malicious actors to use web ads to spread exploit kits. Unsurprisingly, malicious actors also… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/may/vb2016-paper-uncovering-secrets-malvertising/

VB2016 preview: Uncovering the Secrets of Malvertising

Malvertising, in which legitimate ad networks are abused to silently infect users with malware, has become a real plague in recent years. A VB2016 paper by Malwarebytes researchers Jérôme Segura and Chris Boyd will look at the issue.
Two years ago, at VB2014, Bromium researcher Vadim Kotov presented a paper in which he looked at various possibilities for cybercriminals to leverage ad networks to spread… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/september/vb2016-preview-uncovering-secrets-malvertising/

Advertisements on Blogspot sites lead to support scam

Support scam pop-ups presented through malicious advertisements show that, next to vulnerable end points, gullible users remain an easy source of money for online criminals.
In our research for the VBWeb tests, in which we measure the ability of security products to block malicious web traffic, we recently noticed some sites hosted on Google's… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/05/advertisements-blogspot-sites-lead-support-scam/

Let's Encrypt certificate used in malversiting

We'd better get used to a world where malicious traffic is encrypted too.
We'd better get used to a world where malicious traffic is encrypted too. According to some people, myself included, Let's Encrypt was one of the best things that happened to the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/01/let-s-encrypt-certificate-used-malversiting/

Adobe to patch Flash Player zero-day next week

Patch due next week as malvertising leads to Bedep trojan downloader.
Patch due next week as malvertising leads to Bedep trojan downloader. As the news of a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe's Flash Player actively being exploited reached the security… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/01/adobe-patch-flash-player-zero-day-next-week/

VB2014 paper: Optimized mal-ops. Hack the ad network like a boss

Why buying ad space makes perfect sense for those wanting to spread malware.
Why buying ad space makes perfect sense for those wanting to spread malware.Over the next few months, we will be sharing VB2014 conference papers as well as video recordings of the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/11/paper-optimized-mal-ops-hack-ad-network-boss/

Malicious ads served on java.com

If you do need to run plug-ins, make sure you enable click-to-play.
If you do need to run plug-ins, make sure you enable click-to-play. Last week, we published a blog previewing the VB2014 paper 'Optimized mal-ops. Hack the ad network like a boss'… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/malicious-ads-served-java-com/

VB2014 preview: Optimized mal-ops. Hack the ad network like a boss

Researchers Vadim Kotov and Rahul Kashyap to discuss how advertisements are the new exploit kits.
Researchers Vadim Kotov and Rahul Kashyap to discuss how advertisements are the new exploit kits.In the weeks running up to VB2014 (the 24th Virus Bulletin International… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/08/preview-optimized-mal-ops-hack-ad-network-boss/

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