VB Blog

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Mar 18, 2016

You have until the early hours (GMT) of Monday 21 March to submit an abstract for VB2016! The VB2016 programme will be announced in the first week of April.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Mar 15, 2016

SHA-1 collisions may be found in the next few months, but that doesn't mean that fake SHA-1-based certificates will be created in the near future. Nevertheless, it is time for everyone, and those working in security in particular, to move away from outdated hash functions.

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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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