VB Blog

A Christmas present for the security community

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!

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Paper: Spreading techniques used by malware

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.

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VB2016 video: On the StrongPity waterhole attacks targeting Italian and Belgian encryption users

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.

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Conference review: Botconf 2016

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.

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Throwback Thursday: Adjust Your Attitude!

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.

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VB2016 paper: Modern attacks on Russian financial institutions

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.

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More on the Moose botnet at Botconf

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.

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VB2016 paper: Defeating sandbox evasion: how to increase successful emulation rate in your virtualized environment

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.

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VB2016 paper: Mobile applications: a backdoor into the Internet of Things?

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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VB2016 paper: Wave your false flags! Deception tactics muddying attribution in targeted attacks

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Nov 21, 2016

Today, we publish the VB2016 paper and presentation (recording) by Kaspersky Lab researchers Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade and Brian Bartholomew, in which they look at some of the deception tactics used in targeted attacks.

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Search blog

VirusTotal project aims to remediate false positives

Security vendors to receive alerts when legitimate files are detected as malicious.
Security vendors to receive alerts when legitimate files are detected as malicious.False positives are a huge problem for the IT industry in general and for security products in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2015/02/virustotal-project-aims-remediate-false-positives/

IEEE announces Anti-Malware Support Service

'Software taggant system' and 'clean file metadata exchange' discussed at previous VB conferences.
'Software taggant system' and 'clean file metadata exchange' discussed at previous VB conferences. Wouldn't it be nice if providers of software packers included a licence key in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2014/03/ieee-announces-anti-malware-support-service/

Sophos red flags Google Analytics

Popular analytics tool mistakenly flagged as 'high risk'.
Popular analytics tool mistakenly flagged as 'high risk'. Security firm Sophos had an embarrassing moment this morning when its scanner flagged Google Analytics as malicious.… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/06/sophos-red-flags-google-analytics/

Keylogger on Samsung laptops proves to be false alarm

AV product wrongly flags malware based on existence of directory.
AV product wrongly flags malware based on existence of directory. A number of security bloggers raised concern yesterday about the apparent presence of a keylogger on Samsung… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/03/keylogger-samsung-laptops-proves-be-false-alarm/

McAfee offers payments to cover FP cleanup costs

Compensation for faulty update victims could set precedent.
Compensation for faulty update victims could set precedent. Victims of the erroneous McAfee DAT update last month are being offered cash payments to cover costs incurred in fixing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2010/05/mcafee-offers-payments-cover-fp-cleanup-costs/

False positive problem hits avast! users

Human failure blamed for faulty update.
Human failure blamed for faulty update. A relatively small subsection of the massive user base for Alwil's ever-popular avast! products were hit by a string of false positives last… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/12/false-positive-problem-hits-avast-users/

Serious false positive hits users of old McAfee engines

Batch of system files wrongly flagged as malware, current versions not affected.
Batch of system files wrongly flagged as malware, current versions not affected. An update released by McAfee last week resulted in problems around the world, as some vital system… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/07/serious-false-positive-hits-users-old-mcafee-engines/

VB announces latest VBSpam certification results

Two products achieve top level VBSpam Platinum award.
Two products achieve top level VBSpam Platinum award. Virus Bulletin has announced the results of its second comparative review of anti-spam products, revealing two top-level… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/07/vb-announces-latest-vbspam-certification-results/

DKIM usage shows significant growth

US banks urged to use authentication method
US banks urged to use authentication method In a report on its website, Internet giant Cisco states it has been seeing almost 700,000 non-spam messages that contain valid DKIM… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/06/dkim-usage-shows-significant-growth/

McAfee false positive flags Vista component

Innocent file labelled trojan.
Innocent file labelled trojan.McAfee has updated one of its detections after a faulty update led to an integral component of the Windows Vista operating system being falsely… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/10/mcafee-false-positive-flags-vista-component/

Tough weekend for AV giants as FPs and DNS issues hit

Trend false alert cripples users' systems, Sophos sites taken out by DNS mixup.
Trend false alert cripples users' systems, Sophos sites taken out by DNS mixup. Two of the larger security firms, Trend Micro and Sophos, had a busy weekend cleaning up after… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/09/tough-weekend-av-giants-fps-and-dns-issues-hit/

NOD32 alerts on suspect adverts

False positive reveals sneaky techniques used in ads.
False positive reveals sneaky techniques used in ads.ESET's NOD32 product was updated several times in close succession over the weekend, as false positives were introduced… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/07/nod32-alerts-suspect-adverts/

Symantec sued for false positive

Chinese FP issue leads to court case.
Chinese FP issue leads to court case. A Chinese lawyer has begun court proceedings against security firm Symantec, claiming damages as a result of the widely-publicised false… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/06/symantec-sued-false-positive/

Norton FP trashes Chinese systems

Vital DLLs flagged as malware disable Windows XP across China.
Vital DLLs flagged as malware disable Windows XP across China. A serious false positive, caused by an erroneous update to Symantec's Norton Anti-virus product range issued late… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2007/05/norton-fp-trashes-chinese-systems/

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