VB Blog

Book review: Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 2, 2017

VB Editor Martijn Grooten reviews Finn Brunton's book 'Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet'.

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Virus Bulletin to sponsor BSides London

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Jun 1, 2017

Virus Bulletin is proud to be a Silver sponsor of BSides London next week; we look forward to the event and to meeting many security professionals.

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VB2016 video: Last-minute paper: Malicious proxy auto-configs: an easy way to harvest banking credentials

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 30, 2017

In a VB2016 last-minute presentation, Jaromír Horejší and Jan Širmer looked at Retefe, a trojan that has targeted banks in several European countries and used malicious proxy auto-config filesto redirect users' traffic to a server controlled by the attackers. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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WannaCry shows we need to understand why organizations don't patch

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 17, 2017

Perhaps the question we should be asking about WannaCry is not "why do so many organizations allow unpatched machines to exist on their networks?" but "why doesn't patching work reasonably well most of the time?"

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Modern security software is not necessarily powerless against threats like WannaCry

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 15, 2017

The WannaCry ransomware has affected many organisations around the world, making it probably the worst and most damaging of its kind. But modern security is not necessarily powerless against such threats.

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Throwback Thursday: CARO: A personal view

Posted by   Helen Martin on   May 11, 2017

This week sees the 11th International CARO Workshop taking place in Krakow, Poland – a prestigious annual meeting of anti-malware and security experts. As a founding member of CARO, Fridrik Skulason was well placed, in August 1994, to shed some light on the organization, to explain in detail CARO's main activities and functions, as well as the reasons behind its strict membership regulations.

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VB2016 paper: Uncovering the secrets of malvertising

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 10, 2017

Malicious advertising, a.k.a. malvertising, has evolved tremendously over the past few years to take a central place in some of today’s largest web-based attacks. It is by far the tool of choice for attackers to reach the masses but also to target them with infinite precision and deliver such payloads as ransomware. Today, we publish a paper presented at VB2016 in Denver by Malwarebytes researchers Jérôme Segura and Chris Boyd, in which they look at the advertising ecosystem, how it is used, and at what techniques are being utilised to spread malware

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Throwback Thursday: Tools of the DDoS Trade

Posted by   Helen Martin on   May 4, 2017

As DDoS attacks become costlier to fix and continue to increase in both number and diversity, we turn back the clock to 2000, when Aleksander Czarnowski took a look at the DDoS tools of the day.

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VB2016 paper: Building a local passiveDNS capability for malware incident response

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   May 4, 2017

At VB2016, Splunk researchers Kathy Wang and Steve Brant presented a Splunk app that can be used to locally collect passive DNS data. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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VB2016 video: Last-minute paper: A malicious OS X cocktail served from a tainted bottle

Posted by   Martijn Grooten on   Apr 28, 2017

In a VB2016 last-minute presentation, ESET researchers Peter Kalnai and Martin Jirkal looked at the OS X malware threats KeRanger and Keydnap, that both spread through a compromised BitTorrent client. A recording of their presentation is now available to view on our YouTube channel.

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Search blog

Spam King sued again

Serial spammer charged with more spamming.
Serial spammer charged with more spamming. Software and security firm Infinite Monkeys & Company has announced that a lawsuit has been filed against 'Spam King' Scott Richter, head… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/spam-king-sued-again/

Zero-day exploit targeting IE flaw

'Extremely critical' buffer overflow used to drop spyware.
'Extremely critical' buffer overflow used to drop spyware. Researchers at anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software have reported an new attack actively exploiting another unpatched… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/zero-day-exploit-targeting-ie-flaw/

Several backdoors in PDF revealed

Researcher lists security issues with document format.
Researcher lists security issues with document format. A researcher analysing the possibility of exploiting vulnerabilities in the Adobe PDF file format has released a lengthy list… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/several-backdoors-pdf-revealed/

Google embarrassed by phishing demo

Fake Gmail site served by Google itself.
Fake Gmail site served by Google itself. Web search and service behemoth Google has had its security credibility hit this weekend, after a site was set up on its servers spoofing… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/google-embarrassed-phishing-demo/

FTC shuts down spammers

Four spam companies hit by CAN-SPAM rulings.
Four spam companies hit by CAN-SPAM rulings. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stepped its anti-spam operations up a gear last week, shutting down four separate organisations… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/ftc-shuts-down-spammers/

Chain letter email reaps addresses

Fake research a harvesting trick by spammers.
Fake research a harvesting trick by spammers. An email widely spammed out in recent days claiming to be part of a research project into email use is in fact a scam designed to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/chain-letter-email-reaps-addresses/

Spamhaus fined $11.7 million for blocking spam

US judgement meaningless, says UK anti-spam project.
US judgement meaningless, says UK anti-spam project. An Illinois court has passed a judgement demanding UK-based spam advisory organisation Spamhaus pay $11.7 million in damages to… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/spamhaus-fined-11-7-million-blocking-spam/

Vulnerability reported in IE

ActiveX flaw opens another hole in MS browser.
ActiveX flaw opens another hole in MS browser. Yet another bug has been found in Microsoft's browser Internet Explorer, only days after a previous problem was patched for the third… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/vulnerability-reported-ie/

Symantec hit by vulnerabilities

Two flaws in alert handling unveiled.
Two flaws in alert handling unveiled. Two separate vulnerabilites in the alert notification handling systems of Symantec products have been reported this week. Symantec Client… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/symantec-hit-vulnerabilities/

ISP wins $11 million from spammers

Judgement in EarthLink lawsuit grants heavy payout.
Judgement in EarthLink lawsuit grants heavy payout. US ISP giant EarthLink, a regular champion of the CAN-SPAM Act, has won yet another case against a spammer. The judgement passed… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/isp-wins-11-million-spammers/

Sony DRM/AOL combo breaks computers

Anti-spyware tool attacks rootkit, kills CD drive.
Anti-spyware tool attacks rootkit, kills CD drive. An alert has been issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, warning that an anti-spyware product from AOL has a… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/sony-drm-aol-combo-breaks-computers/

Patch Tuesday light on patches

MS patches previous patches, but not Word exploit.
MS patches previous patches, but not Word exploit.Microsoft's monthly 'Patch Tuesday' release of security fixes has been relatively quiet, with only three new bugs repaired, in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/patch-tuesday-light-patches/

Barclays phish spammed widely

64% of recent phishes targeting global brand.
64% of recent phishes targeting global brand. Reports from Panda Software warn of a major phishing campaign targeting users of Barclays online banking, causing a 30% rise in… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/barclays-phish-spammed-widely/

Star sites host most malware

Celebrities bigger lure than sex, says McAfee.
Celebrities bigger lure than sex, says McAfee. A report on adware and spyware from McAfee has stated that celebrity sites, rather than those pushing pornography or other widely… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/star-sites-host-most-malware/

Zotob authors jailed

One year, two years for worm writing duo.
One year, two years for worm writing duo. Courts in Morocco have convicted two men accused of having a hand in the creation and distribution of the 'Zotob' worm, which struck… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/zotob-authors-jailed/

Phishing records broken in July

Highest ever numbers of phishing sites and brands, reports APWG.
Highest ever numbers of phishing sites and brands, reports APWG. 154 brands were recorded as targets for phishing attempts in July, according to the Anti Phishing Working Group… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/phishing-records-broken-july/

Spearphishers track eBay trades

Auction losers tempted by second-chance phishes.
Auction losers tempted by second-chance phishes. As part of the general trend of more focused phishing, users of online auction house eBay are reporting phishes directly targeting… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/spearphishers-track-ebay-trades/

Fake news site carries trojan

Conspiracy warning spam points to exploit web page.
Conspiracy warning spam points to exploit web page. A spam campaign is directing Australian readers to a faked news site designed to drop a trojan. The initial mails carry a stark… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/fake-news-site-carries-trojan/

Botnet keepers rake in adware cash

Zombie herder makes $430 per day from single piece of adware.
Zombie herder makes $430 per day from single piece of adware. According to research by the German Honeynet Project, a botnet controller who installed adware including DollarRevenue… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/botnet-keepers-rake-adware-cash/

More AV products suffer flaws

Vulnerabilities found in AntiVir and avast!.
Vulnerabilities found in AntiVir and avast!. Security defects in two anti-virus products have been reported by security watch company Secunia in the last week. While the AntiVir… https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/2006/09/more-av-products-suffer-flaws/

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