VB Blog

VB2019 presentation: A deep dive into iPhone exploit chains

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jan 10, 2020

In a last-minute presentation at VB2019 in London, John Bambenek of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discussed details of campaigns that used advanced iOS and Android exploit chains against China’s Uighur minority. Today we release the recording of John's presentation.

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Latest VBWeb report describes current state of the web-based threat landscape

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Jan 8, 2020

Today we released the Winter 2020 VBWeb report, detailing the performance of web security products against live web threats and looking at the current state of the web-based threat landscape.

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VB2019 paper: Catch me if you can: detection of injection exploitation by validating query and API integrity

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jan 6, 2020

In a paper presented at VB2019 in London, Prismo Systems researchers Abhishek Singh and Ramesh Mani discussed code injection vulnerabilities and presented a tool that could detect this vulnerability class. Today we publish their paper and the recording of their presentation.

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Virus Bulletin says a fond farewell and thank you to Martijn Grooten

Posted by   Helen Martin on   Dec 31, 2019

As VB Editor Martijn Grooten steps down from his role to move on to new challenges, the team wish him a fond farewell and the very best of luck in his future endeavours.

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VB2019 paper: Never before had Stierlitz been so close to failure (or: what is a Soviet super-spy doing in a popular bundleware for Mac?)

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 27, 2019

Today, we publish the VB2019 paper and video by Sophos researcher Sergei Shevchenko in which he analyses a popular yet unnamed piece of macOS ‘bundleware’.

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Parting thoughts 5: bringing the good news

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 23, 2019

In the final of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten argues for more emphasis on the good news in security, especially that which is more subtle.

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Parting thoughts 4: the big picture

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Dec 20, 2019

In the fourth of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why security researchers should refer to other people's work.

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Parting thoughts 3: taking security seriously

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 19, 2019

In the third of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why he believes security vendors should take their products' security more seriously.

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VB2019 paper: Exploring the Chinese DDoS landscape

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 19, 2019

China has long been a hotbed of DDoS activities, and today we publish a VB2019 paper by Intezer researcher Nacho Sanmillan who looked at Chinese threat groups engaged in performing DDoS attacks. We have also uploaded the recording of his presentation.

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Parting thoughts 2: the need for education in security

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Dec 18, 2019

In the second of a five-part series of blog posts, departing VB Editor Martijn Grooten explains why he believes cybersecurity professionals need to educate themselves on the complexities of the real-world situations in which security is applied.

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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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