AI-Automated Threat Hunting Brings GhostPenguin Out of the Shadows


Hunting high-impact, advanced malware is a difficult task. It becomes even harder and more time-consuming when defenders focus on low-detection or zero-detection samples. Every day, a huge number of files are sent to platforms like VirusTotal, and the relevant ones often get lost in all that noise. Identifying malware with low or no detections is a particularly challenging process, especially when the malware is new, undocumented, and built largely from scratch.

When threat actors avoid publicly available libraries, known GitHub code, or code borrowed from other malware families, they create previously unseen samples that can evade detection and make hunting them significantly harder. In these cases, the threat actors carefully craft both the code and the network communication to minimize noise and keep the malware as inconspicuous as possible.

Read more…
Source: Trend Micro


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Gatekeeper Bug in MacOS Mojave Allows Malware to Execute

    May 28, 2019

    Researcher discloses vulnerability in macOS Gatekeeper security feature that allows the execution of malicious code on current version of the OS. Researcher Filippo Cavallarin disclosed a bug in the macOS security feature Gatekeeper that allows malicious code execution on systems running the most recent version of Mojave (10.14.0). MacOS Gatekeeper is an Apple security feature that enforces ...

  • One Million Devices Open to Wormable Microsoft BlueKeep Flaw

    May 28, 2019

    Researchers have discovered one million devices that are vulnerable to a “wormable” Microsoft flaw, which could open the door to a WannaCry-like cyberattack. One million devices are still vulnerable to BlueKeep, a critical Microsoft bug with “wormable” capabilities, almost two weeks after a patch was released. The flaw (CVE-2019-0708) was fixed during Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday Security Bulletin earlier this ...

  • Intense scanning activity detected for BlueKeep RDP flaw

    May 26, 2019

    Threat actors have started scanning the internet for Windows systems that are vulnerable to the BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) vulnerability. This vulnerability impacts the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) service included in older versions of the Windows OS, such as XP, 7, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Microsoft released fixes for this vulnerability on May 14, as part of the ...

  • Hackers are scanning for MySQL servers to deploy GandCrab ransomware

    May 24, 2019

    At least one Chinese hacking crew is currently scanning the internet for Windows servers that are running MySQL databases so they can infect these systems with the GandCrab ransomware. These attacks are somewhat unique, as cyber-security firms have not seen any threat actor until now that has attacked MySQL servers running on Windows systems to infect ...

  • UK says it warned 16 NATO allies of Russian hacking activities

    May 23, 2019

    The UK has shared information on Russian hacking attacks with 16 NATO allies over the last 18 months, a British government official said today. “I can disclose that in the last 18 months, the National Cyber Security Centre has shared information and assessments with 16 NATO Allies – and even more nations outside the Alliance – ...

  • Trickbot Watch: Arrival via Redirection URL in Spam

    May 20, 2019

    Trend Micro discovered a variant of the Trickbot banking trojan (detected by Trend Micro as TrojanSpy.Win32.TRICKBOT.THDEAI) using a redirection URL in a spam email. In this particular case, the variant used Google to redirect from the URL hxxps://googledm:443/url?q=<trickbot downloader>, whereby the URL in the query string, url?q=<url>, is the malicious URL that the user is redirected to. ...