VB Blog

Paper: New Keylogger on the Block

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jul 5, 2016

In a new paper published by Virus Bulletin, Sophos researcher Gabor Szappanos takes a look at the KeyBase keylogger, sold as a commercial product and popular among cybercriminals who use it in Office exploit kits.

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BSides Denver to take place the day after VB2016

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 28, 2016

VB2016, the 26th International Virus Bulletin conference, is an excellent reason to go to Denver, Colorado in the first week of October. But there is another reason to come to Denver: BSides Denver, which will take place the day after VB2016, on Saturday 8 October 2016.

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VB2015 paper: DDoS Trojan: A Malicious Concept that Conquered the ELF Format

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jun 13, 2016

In their VB2015 paper, Peter Kálnai and Jaromír Hořejší look at the current state of DDoS trojans forming covert botnets on unsuspecting systems. The paper provides a technical analysis of the most important malware families, focusing on infection methods, dynamic behaviour, C&C communication, obfuscation techniques, advanced methods of persistence and stealth, and elimination of rivals.

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Throwback Thursday: Hyppönen, that Data Fellow / Finnish Sprayer

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Jun 2, 2016

This week, well known and universally respected industry guru Mikko Hyppönen celebrates his 25th anniversary of working at F-Secure (formerly known as Data Fellows). VB takes a look back in the archives at two articles published in 1994: an "insight" into the life and work of the then rising star of the anti-virus world, and a virus analysis penned by the man himself.

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VB2015 paper: Economic Sanctions on Malware

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Jun 1, 2016

Financial pressure can be a proactive and potentially very effective tool in making our computer ecosystems safer. By cleverly employing various trust metrics and technologies such as digital signing, watermarking, and public-key infrastructure in strategically selected places, we can encourage good behaviours and punish bad ones. In his VB2015 paper, Igor Muttik analyses and gives examples of technologies (certificates, credentials, etc.) to de-incentivize bad behaviours in several ecosystems (Windows, Android, iOS).

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Virus Bulletin's job site for recruiters and job seekers

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 26, 2016

Virus Bulletin has relaunched its security job vacancy service and added a new section, in which job seekers can advertise their skills and experience.

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Throwback Thursday: One_Half: The Lieutenant Commander?

Posted by   Helen Martin on   May 26, 2016

In October 1994, a new multi-partite virus appeared, using some of the techniques developed by the Dark Avenger in Commander_Bomber. As if this were not enough, the One_Half virus could also encrypt vital parts of the fixed disk. Eugene Kaspersky provided a detailed analysis.

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Advertisements on Blogspot sites lead to support scam

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 9, 2016

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.

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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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Emotet trojan starts stealing full emails from infected machines

The infamous Emotet trojan has added the capability to steal full email bodies from infected machines, opening the possibilities for more targeted spam and phishing campaigns.
Researchers at Kryptos Logic have discovered that the Emotet banking trojan is exfiltrating entire email bodies as opposed to merely email addresses. Emotet was first discovered… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/10/emotet-trojan-starts-stealing-full-emails-infected-machines/

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/

Worms wiggling inside your networks are a lot harder to stop

The authors of the Trickbot banking trojan seem to have taken note of the use of SMB by WannaCry and (Not)Petya and have added an (experimental) module that uses SMB for lateral movement.
Damaging though they were, the recent WannaCry and (Not)Petya outbreaks taught security practitioners many valuable lessons. Unfortunately, they taught important lessons to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/08/worms-wiggling-inside-your-networks-are-lot-harder-stop/

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: 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/

Throwback Thursday: I say Virus, You say Trojan

This Throwback Thursday, VB heads back to 1998 — a time when anti-virus vendors avoided tackling non-replicating trojans, worms, jokes and corrupted files.
This Throwback Thursday, VB heads back to 1998 — a time when anti-virus vendors avoided tackling non-replicating trojans, worms, jokes and corrupted files. Today, the idea of… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2016/01/throwback-thursday-i-say-virus-you-say-trojan/

Paper: Shifu — the rise of a self-destructive banking trojan

Thorough analysis of this new kid on the malware block.
Thorough analysis of this new kid on the malware block. Times are changing rapidly for banking trojans. Some prominent arrests and at least partially successful takedowns have left… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/11/paper-shifu-rise-self-destructive-banking-trojan/

Paper: Not a GAMe maKER

Raul Alvarez performs low-level analysis of information-stealing trojan.
Raul Alvarez performs low-level analysis of information-stealing trojan. The Gamker information-stealing trojan (also known as Shiz) has been around for a few years. It made the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/08/paper-not-game-maker/

Paper: Life after the apocalypse for the Middle Eastern NJRat campaign

Malware authors upped their game following 2014 disruption of No-IP.
Malware authors upped their game following 2014 disruption of No-IP. In June last year, somewhat controversially Microsoft moved against dynamic DNS provider No-IP and seized 22 of… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/08/paper-life-after-apocalypse-middle-eastern-njrat-campaign/

Vawtrak uses Tor2Web to connect to Tor hidden C&C servers

Option hides the servers, without having to include a Tor client in the malware.
Option hides the servers, without having to include a Tor client in the malware. The authors of the Vawtrak trojan (also known as Neverquest) have moved some of its C&C servers to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/06/vawtrak-uses-tor2web-connect-tor-hidden-c-amp-c-servers/

Vawtrak trojan spread through malicious Office macros

Users easily tricked, but plenty of opportunity for the malware to be blocked.
Users easily tricked, but plenty of opportunity for the malware to be blocked. Researchers at Trend Micro report that the 'Vawtrak' banking trojan now also spreads through Office… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/vawtrak-trojan-spread-through-malicious-office-macros/

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: The evolution of webinjects

Jean-Ian Boutin looks at the increased commoditization of webinjects.
Jean-Ian Boutin looks at the increased commoditization of webinjects.Virus Bulletin has always been about sharing information, and the Virus Bulletin conference is an important… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/10/paper-evolution-webinjects/

Paper: Not old enough to be forgotten: the new chic of Visual Basic 6

Marion Marschalek looks at two Miuref binaries: one packed with Visual Basic 6 and one with C++.
Marion Marschalek looks at two Miuref binaries: one packed with Visual Basic 6 and one with C++. Two months ago, Microsoft announced it had added 'Miuref' to its Malicious Software… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/07/paper-not-old-enough-be-forgotten-new-chic-visual-basic-6/

Cheap Android phone comes shipped with spyware

Trojan masquerades as Google Play app; cannot be removed.
Trojan masquerades as Google Play app; cannot be removed. Researchers at German security firm G Data have discovered Android smartphones that come shipped with spyware. The phone… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/06/cheap-android-phone-comes-shipped-spyware/

Game over for GameOver Zeus botnet?

Coordinated effort against gang that's also behind CryptoLocker ransomware.
Coordinated effort against gang that's also behind CryptoLocker ransomware. A large, coordinated effort involving law enforcement, security vendors and various security… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/06/game-over-gameover-zeus-botnet/

Spam link sends Android users to trojan proxy

Meanwhile, desktop users sent to (relatively harmless) weight-loss site.
Meanwhile, desktop users sent to (relatively harmless) weight-loss site. Links found in certain spam emails which redirect desktop users to a phony weight-loss website, have been… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2013/03/spam-link-sends-android-users-trojan-proxy/

Anti-virus software significantly shortens life of banking trojans

Security software causes malware to run for less than a third as long.
Security software causes malware to run for less than a third as long. 'Does anti-virus software actually help?' is a question often asked, even by security experts - who point to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2012/10/anti-virus-software-significantly-shortens-life-banking-trojans/

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