Packers or crypters are widely used to protect malicious software from detection and static analysis. These auxiliary tools, through the use of compression and encryption algorithms, enable cybercriminals to prepare unique samples of malicious software for each campaign or even per victim, which complicates the work of antivirus software.
In the case of certain packers, classifying malicious software without employing dynamic analysis becomes a challenging task. To analyze a malicious sample and extract its configuration data, such as encryption keys and command and control server addresses, we must first unpack it. We can do this by running the malicious software in a sandbox environment, such as CAPE, followed by extracting the memory dumps. However, this method has some drawbacks.
Read more…
Source: Check Point
Related:
- Case Study: Emotet Thread Hijacking, an Email Attack Technique
September 23, 2020
Malicious spam (malspam) pushing Emotet malware is the most common email-based threat, far surpassing other malware families, with only a few other threats coming close. In recent weeks, we have seen significantly more Emotet malspam using a technique called “thread hijacking” that utilizes legitimate messages stolen from infected computers’ email clients. This malspam spoofs a legitimate ...
- Looking for sophisticated malware in IoT devices
September 23, 2020
Smart watches, smart home devices and even smart cars – as more and more connected devices join the IoT ecosystem, the importance of ensuring their security becomes patently obvious. It’s widely known that the smart devices which are now inseparable parts of our lives are not very secure against cyberattacks. Malware targeting IoT devices has been ...
- Fileless Malware Tops Critical Endpoint Threats for 1H 2020
September 21, 2020
In the first half of 2020, the most common critical-severity cybersecurity threat to endpoints was fileless malware, according to a recent analysis of telemetry data from Cisco. Fileless threats consist of malicious code that runs in memory after initial infection, instead of files being stored on the hard drive. Cisco flagged threats like Kovter, Poweliks, Divergent ...
- Thanos Ransomware: Destructive Variant Targeting State-Run Organizations in the Middle East and North Africa
September 4, 2020
On July 6 and July 9, 2020, we observed files associated with an attack on two state-run organizations in the Middle East and North Africa that ultimately installed and ran a variant of the Thanos ransomware. The Thanos variant created a text file that displayed a ransom message requesting the victim transfer “20,000$” into a ...
- XCSSET Update: Browser Debug Modes, Inactive Ransomware
September 4, 2020
In our first blog post that covered XCSSET, we discussed its relatively unique danger to Xcode developers and the way it took advantage of two macOS vulnerabilities to maximize what it can take from an infected machine. Our research into this incident is still ongoing, and in this blog post, we cover some other aspects of ...
- Transparent Tribe: Evolution analysis, part 2
August 26, 2020
Transparent Tribe, also known as PROJECTM or MYTHIC LEOPARD, is a highly prolific group whose activities can be traced as far back as 2013. In the last four years, this APT group has never taken time off. They continue to hit their targets, which typically are Indian military and government personnel. This is the second of ...
