- Assessing the impact of protection from web miners
September 17, 2019
Kaspersky Lab present the results of evaluating the positive economic and environmental impact of blocking web miners with Kaspersky products. The total power saving can be calculated with known accuracy using the formula <w>·N, where <w> is the average value of the increase in power consumption of the user device during web mining, and N is ...
- The Legend of Adwind: A Commodity RAT Saga in Eight Parts
September 17, 2019
In early 2012, a developer started selling the first of the Adwind family, Java-based remote access tools (RATs), called “Frutas.” In the ensuing years, it has been rebranded at least seven times. Its other names have included Adwind, UnReCoM, Alien Spy, JSocket, JBifrost, UnknownRat, and JConnectPro. The Adwind RAT family remains prevalent in the wild. Palo ...
- Astaroth Spy Trojan Uses Facebook, YouTube Profiles to Cover Tracks
September 13, 2019
Facebook and YouTube profiles are at the heart of an ongoing phishing campaign spreading the Astaroth trojan, bent on the eventual exfiltration of sensitive information. The attack is sophisticated in that it uses normally trusted sources as cover for malicious activities – thus evading usually effective email and network security layers. The attack starts with an ...
- Thrip: Ambitious Attacks Against High Level Targets Continue
September 9, 2019
Symantec’s Targeted Attack Analytics uncovers new attack campaigns in South East Asia. Since Symantec first exposed the Thrip group in 2018, the stealthy China-based espionage group has continued to mount attacks in South East Asia, hitting military organizations, satellite communications operators, and a diverse range of other targets in the region. Many of its recent attacks have involved ...
- ‘Purple Fox’ Fileless Malware with Rookit Component Delivered by Rig Exploit Kit Now Abuses PowerShell
September 9, 2019
Exploit kits may no longer be as prolific as it was back when their activities were detected in the millions, but their recurring activities in the first half of 2019 indicate that they won’t be going away any time soon. The Rig exploit kit, for instance, is known for delivering various payloads — such as downloader trojans, ransomware, cryptocurrency-mining malware, and information stealers — whose ...
- Newly discovered cyber-espionage malware abuses Windows BITS service
September 9, 2019
Security researchers have found another instance of a malware strain abusing the Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). The malware appears to be the work of a state-sponsored cyber-espionage group that researchers have been tracking for years under the name of Stealth Falcon. The first and only report on this hacking group has been published in 2016 by ...
- Thousands of servers infected with new Lilocked (Lilu) ransomware
September 6, 2019
Thousands of web servers have been infected and had their files encrypted by a new strain of ransomware named Lilocked (or Lilu). Infections have been happening since mid-July, and have intensified in the past two weeks, ZDNet has learned. Based on current evidence, the Lilocked ransomware appears to target Linux-based systems only. First reports date to mid-July, after ...
- Malware Classification with ‘Graph Hash,’ Applied to the Orca Cyberespionage Campaign
September 6, 2019
In malware research, threat hunting and sharing of threat intelligence, such as exchanging indicators of compromise (IoCs) in the form of hashes (e.g., MD5s, SHA256s), are common industry practices and helpful for information security professionals. Researchers, for instance, would typically search for malware samples on VirusTotal using hashes. However, hashes have some characteristics that could ...
- New Bedford Hit With $5.3m Ransomware Demand
September 5, 2019
A Massachusetts city has revealed that cyber-criminals tried to hold its data ransom to the tune of more than $5m over the summer, in a sign of the growing risk to organizations from online extortionists. The city of New Bedford was hit with the popular Ryuk strain of ransomware in early July, encrypting data on over 150 ...
- BRATA Android RAT Steals Banking Info in Real Time
September 4, 2019
The RAT targets users via fake WhatsApp updates in Google Play. A powerful Android remote access tool (RAT) family dubbed BRATA is proliferating, with at least 20 different variants cropping up since it was first spotted in January. The majority of the binaries have been found in the official Google Play store, masquerading as updates for ...