VB Blog

Subtle change could see a reduction in installation of malicious Chrome extensions

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 13, 2018

Google has made a subtle change to its Chrome browser, banning the inline installation of new extensions, thus making it harder for malware authors to trick users into unwittingly installing malicious extensions.

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Paper: EternalBlue: a prominent threat actor of 2017–2018

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 11, 2018

We publish a paper by researchers from Quick Heal Security Labs in India, who study the EternalBlue and DoublePulsar exploits in full detail.

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'North Korea' a hot subject among VB2018 talks

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jun 1, 2018

Several VB2018 papers deal explicitly or implicitly with threats that have been attributed to North Korean actors.

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

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 31, 2018

The domain of the little-used SpamCannibal DNS blacklist had expired, resulting in it effectively listing every single IP address.

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MnuBot banking trojan communicates via SQL server

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 30, 2018

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.

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Throwback Thursday: Giving the EICAR test file some teeth

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 24, 2018

The 68-byte EICAR test file plays as important a role today as it did 19 years ago. In this week's Throwback Thursday we look back at a VB99 conference paper in which Randy Abrams described how this 'miracle tool' worked and how it could be used.

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XMRig used in new macOS cryptominer

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 23, 2018

A new piece of cryptocurrency-mining malware on macOS has been found to use the popular XMRig miner.

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Tendency for DDoS attacks to become less volumetric fits in a wider trend

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 22, 2018

CDN provider Cloudflare reports an increase in DDoS attacks targeting layer 7 and focusing on exhausting server resources rather than sending large volumes of data. This fits in a wider trend.

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Turkish Twitter users targeted with mobile FinFisher spyware

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 15, 2018

Through fake social media accounts, users were tricked into installing an Android application that was actually a mobile version of the FinFisher spyware.

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Hide'n'Seek IoT botnet adds persistence

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 9, 2018

The Hide'n'Seek IoT botnet has received an update to make its infection persist on infected devices beyond a restart.

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Search blog

Bank's Twitter account hacked to send phishing messages

Important lessons for companies engaging in social media.
Important lessons for companies engaging in social media. Last week, the Twitter account of the Bank of Melbourne was hacked and used to send direct messages containing phishing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/09/bank-s-twitter-account-hacked-send-phishing-messages/

Outlook spam phishes for SMTP credentials

Login details would give spammers access to legitimate mail servers.
Login details would give spammers access to legitimate mail servers. A phishing scam has been identified that targets users of Microsoft Outlook and tries to obtain SMTP login… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/06/outlook-spam-phishes-smtp-credentials/

Canada new hotbed for cybercriminal activity

Country's IP addresses less likely to be scrutinized.
Country's IP addresses less likely to be scrutinized. Security firm Websense has reported a significant increase in cybercrime originating in Canada. Hitherto, Canada and… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/05/canada-new-hotbed-cybercriminal-activity/

Scammers take advantage of Epsilon data breach

Trojan hidden as security tool for affected customers.
Trojan hidden as security tool for affected customers. Scammers are currently taking advantage of the data breach that affected email security provider Epsilon recently, by… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/04/scammers-take-advantage-epsilon-data-breach/

Major email service provider suffers data breach

Financial institutions among affected customers.
Financial institutions among affected customers. Email service provider Epsilon, which carries out email marketing for many major companies, has admitted it has fallen victim to a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/04/major-email-service-provider-suffers-data-breach/

Dutch most protected Europeans online

Bulgarians most likely to have become infected; financial losses most prevalent among Latvians.
Bulgarians most likely to have become infected; financial losses most prevalent among Latvians. For the occasion of Safer Internet Day on 8 February, Eurostat, the EU's statistical… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/02/dutch-most-protected-europeans-online/

Phishing for different markets

Scam emails trying to steal CO2 emission credits and World-of-Warcraft accounts.
Scam emails trying to steal CO2 emission credits and World-of-Warcraft accounts. Two unrelated phishing campaigns seen doing the rounds recently show that it's not just real money… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2011/01/phishing-different-markets/

Malicious applications target Orkut

Visitors to infected social network profiles redirected to phishing sites.
Visitors to infected social network profiles redirected to phishing sites. Users of the social networking site Orkut have found themselves targeted by malicious applications that… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2010/11/malicious-applications-target-orkut/

Dutch banks report huge increase in online fraud

Users warned against phishing and becoming money mules.
Users warned against phishing and becoming money mules. Figures on online crime released by the association of Dutch banks (NVB) show a significant rise in indicents of online… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2010/10/dutch-banks-report-huge-increase-online-fraud/

Project Honey Pot 'celebrates' billionth spam message

Facebook about to become most phished organization.
Facebook about to become most phished organization. Few people would celebrate receiving a billion spam messages, but those at Project Honey Pot must have been a little proud when… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/12/project-honey-pot-celebrates-billionth-spam-message/

Webmail data leak hype deflated

Rumoured phishing explosion grabs headlines, reality much more mundane.
Rumoured phishing explosion grabs headlines, reality much more mundane. This week has seen some major news organisations picking up on the story of tens of thousands of sets of… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/10/webmail-data-leak-hype-deflated/

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/

Digital attacks encroach on real world

Car park flyers trick victims to malicious site.
Car park flyers trick victims to malicious site. The online arena of scams and phishing took a worrying step into the real world last week, as researchers heard of a scam starting… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/02/digital-attacks-encroach-real-world/

MS report finds phishing revenues overhyped

Huge earnings may be myth, say researchers.
Huge earnings may be myth, say researchers. A report from Microsoft analysing the potential income of phishers claims that the amounts taken from duped victims of online scams may… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/01/ms-report-finds-phishing-revenues-overhyped/

CastleCops closes down

Security community project comes to an end.
Security community project comes to an end. Well-known volunteer group CastleCops, which ran campaigns to identify and bring down spamming and phishing operations for over five… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/01/castlecops-closes-down/

Twitter hit by phishing and hacks

Popular micro-blog site latest target of link spammers.
Popular micro-blog site latest target of link spammers. The latest social networking craze, micro-blogging service Twitter, has joined the likes of MySpace and Facebook in being… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2009/01/twitter-hit-phishing-and-hacks/

Sarkozy bank account raided by cybercrooks

Hackers steal from French president - phish suspected.
Hackers steal from French president - phish suspected. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has had his funds stolen from his bank account, apparently after a phishing email tricked… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/10/sarkozy-bank-account-raided-cybercrooks/

Ham disguised as spam

Webshop makes mass-mailing look like phishing scam.
Webshop makes mass-mailing look like phishing scam. An email addressed to 'Dear customer', in which a user is asked to check their account details, using a link that does not lead… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/10/ham-disguised-spam/

Researchers urge anti-phishing companies to share data

Estimate over $300 million lost annually because data is not shared.
Estimate over $300 million lost annually because data is not shared. Researchers have revealed malicious websites are often active for longer than they ought to be due to a lack of… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2008/10/researchers-urge-anti-phishing-companies-share-data/

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