VB Blog

Throwback Thursday: The Politics of Anti-Virus

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Nov 10, 2016

President-elect of the United States Donald Trump made a number of promises about cybersecurity during his electoral campaign. What comes of those pledges remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: there will be a team of hard-working, dedicated individuals working behind the scenes to protect the computer systems of Federal government agencies, as there have been for years. Back in 1999, VB published a report describing a day in the life of the Affiliated Computer Services Government Solutions Group (ACS GSG) - the group responsible for providing full service computer support to US Federal government agencies across the United States.

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VB2016 paper: The TAO of Automated Iframe Injectors - Building Drive-by Platforms For Fun

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Oct 18, 2016

We publish Aditya K. Sood's VB2016 paper on the use of iframe injectors by cybercriminals to deliver drive-by downloads.

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“Cybersecurity is, at its core, a people problem,” says VB2016 keynote speaker

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Sep 26, 2016

An interview with VB2016’s keynote speaker Christine Whalley - Director, Governance and IT Risk Management at Pfizer

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Throwback Thursday: Following the Breadcrumbs

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Sep 22, 2016

In 1999, Christine Orshesky described how one large organization decided to find out how and where the viruses within it were being obtained so it could do more to protect its networks.

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VB2016 preview: Cryptography mistakes in malware

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Sep 15, 2016

At VB2016, two talks will discuss mistakes made by malware authors in cryptographic implementations. Ben Herzog and Yaniv Balmas will present a paper in which they look at a number of these mistakes, while Malwarebytes researcher hasherezade will present a last-minute paper on making use of some of these mistakes to crack ransomware.

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GPS technology is more at risk from cyber attack than ever before, security expert demonstrates at VB2016

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Sep 14, 2016

Next month at VB2016, HPE Security's Oleg Petrovsky will speak about attacks on GPS. We conducted a short interview with Oleg and asked him about GPS, about the conference, and about his ultimate dinner party.

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BSides Denver: Join and Support the Security Community

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Sep 13, 2016

If you are coming to VB2016 in Denver, why not spend an extra day in the Mile-High City and join the free BSides Denver conference, which takes place on Saturday?

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VB2016 'Last-Minute' Papers Announced

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Sep 13, 2016

We are excited to announce the addition of the "last-minute" papers to the VB2016 programme: nine presentations covering hot research topics, from OS X attacks to exotic APTs, breaking ransomware and the current state of BGP.

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VB2016 preview: Debugging and Monitoring Malware Network Activities with Haka

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Sep 12, 2016

In a VB2016 paper, Stormshield researchers Benoit Ancel and Mehdi Talbi will present a paper on Haka, a tool that can be used to monitor and debug malware's network communications.

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Paper: Behavioural Detection and Prevention of Malware on OS X

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Sep 12, 2016

In a new paper published through Virus Bulletin, Vincent Van Mieghem presents a novel method for detecting malware on Mac OS X, based on the system calls used by malicious software.

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Storm mails bring spoof World War 3 news

US-Iran war story used as hook for malware barrage.
US-Iran war story used as hook for malware barrage. The Storm botnet has been spamming in force again in the past week, with its expected run targeting 4th of July celebrations in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/07/storm-mails-bring-spoof-world-war-3-news/

Macs under attack from trojan double whammy

Two new threats in a week spark worries of approaching Mac malware era.
Two new threats in a week spark worries of approaching Mac malware era. Users of Apple Mac systems, who have so far only suffered from minimal attention from malware creators, may… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/06/macs-under-attack-trojan-double-whammy/

Trojan-to-worm automation tool spotted

GUI gizmo adds extra spreading menace to any malware.
GUI gizmo adds extra spreading menace to any malware. Researchers at Panda have discovered a simple and colourful graphical application designed to add basic worm techniques to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/06/trojan-worm-automation-tool-spotted/

File encryption blackmail scam returns

Kaspersky warns of new and nasty data-ransom trojan.
Kaspersky warns of new and nasty data-ransom trojan. Malware analysts at Kaspersky Lab have warned of the return of the 'Gpcoder' trojan, a nasty piece of 'ransomware' which… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/06/file-encryption-blackmail-scam-returns/

Flash exploit used to steal gaming passwords

Despite initial panic, threat no longer believed to a zero-day exploit.
Despite initial panic, threat no longer believed to a zero-day exploit. In the past few days, thousands of websites have indirectly been serving malicious Adobe Flash (.SWF) files.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/05/flash-exploit-used-steal-gaming-passwords/

'Kraken' monster botnet causing controversy

As latest botnet scare debated, Storm keeps on blowing.
As latest botnet scare debated, Storm keeps on blowing. Recent reports of a massive botnet, apparently sneaking its trojans past security software and far outnumbering better-known… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/04/kraken-monster-botnet-causing-controversy/

HP ships infected USB keys

Autorun worms found on batch of server setup devices.
Autorun worms found on batch of server setup devices. A batch of USB thumb drives containing software intended to assist in the setup of servers have been found to contain some… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/04/hp-ships-infected-usb-keys/

Google Groups and Blogspot used to serve malware

Company finds own IP address to be serving most malware.
Company finds own IP address to be serving most malware.Malware writers have created thousands of Google Groups with the sole purpose of serving malware, Sunbelt reports. On the… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/04/google-groups-and-blogspot-used-serve-malware/

Legitimate program becomes trojan downloader

Website of FlashGet attacked; malicious 'update' automatically downloaded.
Website of FlashGet attacked; malicious 'update' automatically downloaded. By hacking into the website of popular Windows download manager FlashGet, cybercriminals have managed to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/03/legitimate-program-becomes-trojan-downloader/

Habbo trojan steals passwords

Extension decorates your room... with malware.
Extension decorates your room... with malware. A trojan has been discovered that masquerades as an extension to social networking site Habbo, formerly known as Habbo Hotel. The… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/habbo-trojan-steals-passwords/

More PDF exploits seen in wild

Adobe Reader and Acrobat flaws open way for further document attacks.
Adobe Reader and Acrobat flaws open way for further document attacks. A string of vulnerabilities in Adobe's PDF viewing and editing software, disclosed late last week by Adobe and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/more-pdf-exploits-seen-wild/

Fake security blogs lead to malware

Blogger sites play on fears to draw victims to porn, trojans.
Blogger sites play on fears to draw victims to porn, trojans. According to a report from Aladdin, numerous fake security blogs have been set up on the Google-owned Blogger blogging… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/02/fake-security-blogs-lead-malware/

Phishing danger increases as Storm botnet is hired out

Smart new trojan and Storm diversification add to online banking risk.
Smart new trojan and Storm diversification add to online banking risk. The dangers of banking online grew significantly in past weeks, as portions of the ever-expanding Storm… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/phishing-danger-increases-storm-botnet-hired-out/

Hundreds of legitimate websites being hacked into

New mass infection leaves security researchers puzzled.
New mass infection leaves security researchers puzzled. Web security company ScanSafe has reported a new mass infection of websites, which it claims accounts for 15% of the web… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/hundreds-legitimate-websites-being-hacked/

Usual fare for holiday season

Storm ecards and social site spyware mark unsurprising year end.
Storm ecards and social site spyware mark unsurprising year end. With large portions of the globe celebrating various festivals over the past few weeks, an expected upsurge in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/01/usual-fare-holiday-season/

Cyber attackers breach defences at secret US labs

Spearphishing and trojans penetrate research lab security.
Spearphishing and trojans penetrate research lab security. At least one major US science lab, used to handle highly classified government and military material, has had its… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/12/cyber-attackers-breach-defences-secret-us-labs/

Infected Seagate hard drives sold in Taiwan

External Maxtor disks shipped carrying autorun datastealer.
External Maxtor disks shipped carrying autorun datastealer. A shipment of Maxtor external hard drives, produced in Thailand by US-based Seagate and sold in Taiwan, has been found… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/11/infected-seagate-hard-drives-sold-taiwan/

Phishing trojan targets Mac OSX

DNS hijack disguised as codec threatens Apple systems.
DNS hijack disguised as codec threatens Apple systems. A new trojan affecting Apple's Mac OSX operating system - a relative rarity in the malware world - has been seen in the wild.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/11/phishing-trojan-targets-mac-osx/

Melissa has users CAPTCHA'd

Spammers offer strip show for correctly completed CAPTCHAs.
Spammers offer strip show for correctly completed CAPTCHAs. Spammers have spotted a new opportunity for getting humans to help them get past the CAPTCHA tests put in place to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/11/melissa-has-users-captcha-d/

Storm spams promise spooky Halloween

Tricks not treats as skeleton game emails link to attack.
Tricks not treats as skeleton game emails link to attack. The 'Storm' attack has once again taken advantage of a popular cultural occasion to spam out the latest wave of links to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/10/storm-spams-promise-spooky-halloween/

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