U.S. federal authorities have indicted five men — four Russians and a Ukrainian – for allegedly perpetrating many of the biggest cybercrimes of the past decade, including the theft of more than 160 million credit card numbers from major U.S. retailers, banks and card processors.
One of the challenges in malware research is separating the truly novel innovations in malcoding from new nasties that merely include nominal or superficial tweaks. This dynamic holds true for both malware researchers and purveyors, albeit for different reasons. Researchers wish to avoid being labeled alarmist in calling special attention to what appears to be an emerging threat that turns out to be old news; the bad guys just want to avoid getting scammed into paying for an old malware kit dressed up as the new next big thing.
Several recent developments in mobile malware are conspiring to raise the threat level for Android users, making it easier for attackers to convert legitimate applications into malicious apps and to undermine the technology that security experts use to tell the difference.
New fraudster-friendly content management systems are making it more likely than ever that crooks who manage botnets and other large groupings of hacked PCs will extract and sell all credentials of value that can be harvested from the compromised machines.
I recently published a piece that examined the role of several Ukrainian men likely responsible for making and marketing the Styx Pack malware exploit kit. Today’s post will show how this same enterprise is linked to a DDoS protection scheme and a sprawling cybercrook-friendly malware scanning service that is bundled with Styx-Crypt.
An increasing number of malware samples in the wild are using host systems to secretly mine bitcoins. In this post, I’ll look at an affiliate program that pays people for the mass installation of programs that turns host machines into bitcoin mining bots.
Cybercrooks can be notoriously cheap, considering how much they typically get for nothing. I’m reminded of this when I occasionally stumble upon underground forum members trying to sell a used ATM skimmer: Very often, the sales thread devolves into a flame war over whether the fully-assembled ATM skimmer is really worth more than the sum of its parts.
One of the more time-honored traditions at DEF CON — the massive hacker convention held each year in Las Vegas — is “Spot-the-Fed,” a playful and mostly harmless contest to out undercover government agents who attend the show. But that game might be a bit tougher when the conference rolls around again next month: In an apparent reaction to recent revelations about far-reaching U.S. government surveillance programs, DEF CON organizers are asking feds to just stay home.
Earlier this week I wrote about the Styx Pack, an extremely sophisticated and increasingly popular crimeware kit that is being sold to help miscreants booby-trap compromised Web sites with malware. Today, I’ll be following a trail of breadcrumbs that leads back to central Ukraine and to a trio of friends who appear to be responsible for marketing (if not also making) this crimeware-as-a-service.
Patch Tuesday is upon us once again. Adobe today pushed out security fixes for its Flash and Shockwave media players. Separately, Microsoft released seven patch bundles addressing at least 34 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and other software.
