Tag Archives: Virustotal.com

This Windows PowerShell Phish Has Scary Potential

September 19, 2024
60 Comments

Many GitHub users this week received a novel phishing email warning of critical security holes in their code. Those who clicked the link for details were asked to distinguish themselves from bots by pressing a combination of keyboard keys that causes Microsoft Windows to download password-stealing malware. While it’s unlikely that many programmers fell for this scam, it’s notable because less targeted versions of it are likely to be far more successful against the average Windows user.

Wipro Intruders Targeted Other Major IT Firms

April 18, 2019
47 Comments

The criminals responsible for launching phishing campaigns that netted dozens of employees and more than 100 computer systems last month at Wipro, India’s third-largest IT outsourcing firm, also appear to have targeted a number of other competing providers, including Infosys and Cognizant — two other large technology consulting companies, new evidence suggests.

Mobile Giants: Please Don’t Share the Where

May 22, 2018
77 Comments

Your mobile phone is giving away your approximate location all day long. This isn’t exactly a secret: It has to share this data with your mobile provider constantly to provide better call quality and to route any emergency 911 calls straight to your location. But now, the major mobile providers in the United States — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — are selling this location information to third party companies — in real time — without your consent or a court order, and with apparently zero accountability for how this data will be used, stored, shared or protected.

It may be tough to put a price on one’s location privacy, but here’s something of which you can be sure: The mobile carriers are selling data about where you are at any time, without your consent, to third-parties for probably far less than you might be willing to pay to secure it.

Ransomware Now Gunning for Your Web Sites

November 9, 2015
66 Comments

One of the more common and destructive computer crimes to emerge over the past few years involves ransomware — malicious code that quietly scrambles all of the infected user’s documents and files with very strong encryption. A ransom, to be paid in Bitcon, is demanded in exchange for a key to unlock the files. Well, now it appears fraudsters are developing ransomware that does the same but for Web sites — essentially holding the site’s files, pages and images for ransom.

Like Kaspersky, Russian Antivirus Firm Dr.Web Tested Rivals

September 1, 2015
41 Comments

A recent Reuters story accusing Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab of faking malware to harm rivals prompted denials from the company’s eponymous chief executive — Eugene Kaspersky — who called the story “complete BS” and noted that his firm was a victim of such activity. But according to interviews with the CEO of Dr.Web — Kaspersky’s main competitor in Russia — both companies experimented with ways to expose antivirus vendors who blindly accepted malware intelligence shared by rival firms.

A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware

January 15, 2014
202 Comments

Last weekend, Target finally disclosed at least one cause of the massive data breach that exposed personal and financial information on more than 110 million customers: Malicious software that infected point-of-sale systems at Target checkout counters. Today’s post includes new information about the malware apparently used in the attack, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Email-Based Malware Attacks, July 2012

July 31, 2012
45 Comments

Last month’s post examining the top email-based malware attacks received so much attention and provocative feedback that I thought it was worth revisiting. I assembled it because victims of cyberheists rarely discover or disclose how they got infected with the Trojan that helped thieves siphon their money, and I wanted to test conventional wisdom about the source of these attacks.

While the data from the past month again shows why that wisdom remains conventional, I believe the subject is worth periodically revisiting because it serves as a reminder that these attacks can be stealthier than they appear at first glance.

New Java Exploit to Debut in BlackHole Exploit Kits

July 5, 2012
44 Comments

Malicious computer code that leverages a newly-patched security flaw in Oracle’s Java software is set to be deployed later this week to cybercriminal operations powered by the BlackHole exploit pack. The addition of a new weapon to this malware arsenal will almost certainly lead to a spike in compromised PCs, as more than 3 billion devices run Java and many of these installations are months out of date.

A Closer Look: Email-Based Malware Attacks

June 21, 2012
88 Comments

Nearly every time I write about a small to mid-sized business that has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars after falling victim to a malicious software attack, readers ask how the perpetrators broke through the victim organization’s defenses, and which type of malware paved the way. Normally, victim companies don’t know or disclose that information, so to get a better idea, I’ve put together a rough profile of the top daily email-based malware attacks over the past month.