VB Blog

VB2016 paper: Open Source Malware Lab

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Jan 4, 2017

At VB2016, ThreatConnect Director of Research Innovation Robert Simmons presented a paper on setting up an open source malware lab. Today, we share the accompanying paper and video.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 24, 2016

As a Christmas present for the security community, we have uploaded most of the papers and videos from the VB2015 conference which took place in Prague almost 15 months ago. The Virus Bulletin crew wishes you all the best for 2017!

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 21, 2016

In a new paper published by Virus Bulletin, Acalvio researcher Abhishek Singh discusses some of the techniques used by malware to increase its impact by spreading further.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 20, 2016

At VB2016, Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner delivered a presentation on the StrongPity watering hole attacks that targeted users of encryption technologies, and which were recently featured in a report by Microsoft. Today, we share the video of Kurt's presentation.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 20, 2016

Three members of the Virus Bulletin team attended the Botconf 2016 conference in Lyon, France last month, enjoying talks on subjects that ranged from state-sponsored attacks to exploit kits, and from banking trojans to cyber insurance.

Posted by Helen Martin on Dec 15, 2016

"Most of you reading this article have the technical skill but do you have the people skills?" In 2000, James Wolfe urged security experts to sell themselves and their services.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 12, 2016

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.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 2, 2016

At Botconf 2016 this week, GoSecure researchers Masarah Paquet-Clouston and Olivier Bilodeau presented their research on the Moose botnet - something Olivier Bilodeau previously spoke about at VB2015.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Dec 2, 2016

Today, we publish the VB2016 paper and presentation (recording) by Check Point Software researchers Alexander Chailytko and Stanislav Skuratovich, which focuses on the techniques used by malware to detect virtual environments, and provides detailed technical descriptions of what can be done to defeat them.

Posted by Martijn Grooten on Nov 29, 2016

While the Internet of Things blossoms with newly connected objects every day, the security and privacy of these objects is often overlooked, making the IoT a major security concern. Unfortunately, reverse-engineering so-called smart devices is not an easy task. In her VB2016 paper, Axelle Apvrille presented a novel way of analysing smart devices: by looking at the accompanying mobile app. Today, we publish both Axelle’s paper and the video recording of her VB2016 presentation.

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New Emotet spam campaign continues to bypass email security products

On Monday, the infamous Emotet malware resumed its spam campaign to spread the latest version of the malware. As before, the malware successfully bypasses many email security products.
Following the resumption of activity by Emotet's C&C servers in August, it was only a matter of time before the botnet started sending out spam again. This did indeed happen on… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2019/09/new-emotet-spam-campaign-continues-bypass-email-security-products/

From Amazon to Emotet: a look at those phishing and malware emails that bypassed email security products

We see a lot of spam in the VBSpam test lab, and we also see how well such emails are being blocked by email security products. Recently some of the emails that bypassed security products included a broken Amazon phishing campaign, a large fake UPS campai…
This blog post was put together in collaboration with VB test engineers Adrian Luca and Ionuţ Răileanu. On this blog, we regularly look at those phishing and malware emails… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2019/02/amazon-ups-emotet-formbook-and-lokibot-look-those-phishing-and-malware-emails-bypassed-email-security-products/

From HSBC to product descriptions: the malicious emails bypassing your filters

Using data from our VBSpam lab, we looked at the malicious emails that have been missed recently by a large number of email security products.
Over a one-week period earlier this month, the average email with a malicious attachment was almost three times as likely to bypass email security products than a spam email… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2019/01/hsbc-product-descriptions-malicious-emails-bypassing-your-filters/

The spam that is hardest to block is often the most damaging

We see a lot of spam in the VBSpam test lab, and we also see how well such emails are being blocked by email security products. Worryingly, it is often the emails with a malicious attachment or a phishing link that are most likely to be missed.
This blog post was put together in collaboration with VB test engineers Adrian Luca and Ionuţ Răileanu. In a talk I gave at IRISSCON last year (the video of which you will find… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2019/01/spam-hardest-block-often-most-damaging/

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/

We are more ready for IPv6 email than we may think

Though IPv6 is gradually replacing IPv4 on the Internet's network layer, email is lagging behind, the difficulty in blocking spam sent over IPv6 cited as a reason not to move. But would we really have such a hard time blocking spam sent over IPv6?
In email security circles, IPv6 is the elephant in the room. While the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is a relatively smooth affair for most of the Internet, and few people will… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/06/we-are-more-ready-ipv6-email-we-may-think/

Expired domain led to SpamCannibal's blacklist eating the whole world

The domain of the little-used SpamCannibal DNS blacklist had expired, resulting in it effectively listing every single IP address.
The first line of defence in many a spam filter is to query one or more DNS blacklists to see if the sender's IP address (and sometimes their domain) is listed as a known spammer.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/05/expired-domain-led-spamcannibal-blacklisting-whole-world/

Netflix issue shows email verification really does matter

A clever trick taking advantage of the fact that Gmail ignores dots in email addresses could be used to trick someone into paying for your Netflix subscription - demonstrating the importance of confirmed opt-in.
In the email security community, the use of confirmed opt-in has long been a recommended practice: an email address given to you can't be used until the account owner has… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2018/04/netflix-issue-shows-email-verification-does-matter/

Facebook helps you determine whether emails really came from its servers

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.
There are many good reasons to criticize Facebook for its collecting of our personal data, but the company also deserves credit for being at the forefront when it comes to online… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/12/facebook-helps-you-determine-whether-emails-really-came-them/

ROPEMAKER email exploit is of limited practical use

Researchers at Mimecast have published a paper about the 'ROPEMAKER' exploit, which allows an email sender with malicious intentions to change the visial appearance of an email after it has been delivered.
Researchers at Mimecast have published details (pdf) of an email exploit they call 'ROPEMAKER' (short for 'Remotely Originated Post-delivery Email Manipulation Attacks Keeping… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/08/ropemaker-email-exploit-limited-practical-use/

DMARC: an imperfect solution that can make a big difference

US Senator Ron Wyden has asked the Department of Homeland Security to implement DMARC. Martijn Grooten looks at what difference this could make for phishing attacks impersonating the US federal governent.
US Senator Ron Wyden has written a letter (pdf) to the Department of Homeland Security, urging the US government to implement DMARC to "ensure hackers cannot send emails that… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/07/dmarc-imperfect-solution-can-make-big-difference/

Ransomware would be much worse if it wasn't for email security solutions

The latest VBSpam test brings good news: at least 199 out of every 200 emails containing a malicious attachment were blocked by email security solutions. All of the full solutions tested achieved a VBSpam award, with five earning a VBSpam+ award.
Many experts believe that ransomware is set to become an even worse problem in 2017 than it was in 2016 — which is rather bad news, given the damage it has already done. Still,… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2017/01/ransomware-would-be-so-much-worse-if-it-wasnt-email-security-solutions/

Will DIME eventually replace email?

Protocol has all the advantages of email, yet is orders of magnitude more secure.
Protocol has all the advantages of email, yet is orders of magnitude more secure. In the current Internet era sometimes referred to as 'post-Snowden', it is often said that email… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/will-dime-eventually-replace-email/

TorrentLocker spam has DMARC enabled

Use of email authentication technique unlikely to bring any advantage.
Use of email authentication technique unlikely to bring any advantage. Last week, Trend Micro researcher Jon Oliver (who presented a paper on Twitter abuse at VB2014) wrote an… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/03/torrentlocker-spam-has-dmarc-enabled/

Praise for the unsung heroes of email

Many decent performances in VB's latest comparative spam filter test.
Many decent performances in VB's latest comparative spam filter test. A decade ago, there were optimists who thought that the spam problem would soon be eradicated. At the same… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/praise-unsung-heroes-email/

VB2014 paper: DMARC - how to use it to improve your email reputation

Terry Zink presents case study in which he describes setting a DMARC policy for Microsoft.
Terry Zink presents case study in which he describes setting a DMARC policy for Microsoft.Over the next few months, we will be sharing VB2014 conference papers as well as video… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/11/paper-dmarc-how-use-it-improve-your-email-reputation/

DNS cache poisoning used to steal emails

Call to use end-to-end encryption and to deploy DNSSEC.
Call to use end-to-end encryption and to deploy DNSSEC.DNS is sometimes called 'the phone book of the Internet'. If true, then it is a phone book that makes it relatively easy to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/09/dns-cache-poisoning-used-steal-emails/

Yahoo's DMARC policy wreaks havoc among mailing lists

Collateral damage in instruction to reject emails with invalid DKIM signatures.
Collateral damage in instruction to reject emails with invalid DKIM signatures. A change in Yahoo's DMARC policy has caused frustration among operators of many mailing lists and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/04/yahoo-s-dmarc-policy-wreaks-havoc-among-mailing-lists/

At least 99.4% of spam blocked in recent Virus Bulletin test

All solutions on test blocked at least 99.4% of spam, but some struggled with false positive issues; survey also shows few products support DMARC.
All solutions on test blocked at least 99.4% of spam, but some struggled with false positive issues; survey also shows few products support DMARC. The results of the most recent… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/02/least-99-4-spam-blocked-recent-test/

New email header attempts to prevent damage of reissued email addresses

Transactional emails not delivered if the account's owner has changed in the meantime.
Transactional emails not delivered if the account's owner has changed in the meantime. When in June, Yahoo announced it would free up inactive user IDs, it received fierce… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2013/08/new-email-header-attempts-prevent-damage-reissued-email-addresses/

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