A week in security (April 8 – 14)

Last week on Labs, we said hello to Baldr, a new stealer on the market, we wondered who is managing the security of medical management apps, discussed the different perceptions of personal information, and we looked at fake Instagram assistance apps found on Google Play that are stealing password...

Preparing the Internet for the Next Mega DDoS Attack

When you think of a distributed denial-of-service DDoS attack at this point in the age of the internet, you might be thinking they’re old news. But when a multi-million-dollar business can be easily taken offline by an unskilled adversary and a $5 rent-a-DDoS service, I would argue that the issue...

Gustuff banking botnet targets Australia

Vitor Ventura authored this post. Executive summary Cisco Talos has uncovered a new Android-based campaign targeting Australian financial institutions. As the investigation progressed, Talos came to understand that this campaign was associated with the "ChristinaMorrow" text message spam scam...

How Android Fought the Chamois Botnet—and Won

The Chamois botnet once infected 20 million Android devices. Here's how Google finally tore it up...

Cyber Security Week in Review (March 22)

Welcome to this week's Cyber Security Week in Review, where Cisco Talos runs down all of the news we think you need to know in the security world. For more news delivered to your inbox every week, sign up for our Threat Source newsletter here. Top headlines this week Norwegian aluminum company...

Mirai Variant Adds Dozen New Exploits to Target Enterprise IoT Devices

Security researchers have uncovered a new variant of the infamous Mirai Internet of Things botnet, this time targeting embedded devices intended for use within business environments in an attempt to gain control over larger bandwidth to carry out devastating DDoS attacks. Although the original...

IPv6 unmasking via UPnP

Martin Zeiser and Aleksandar Nikolich authored this post. Executive summary With tools such as ZMap and Masscan and general higher bandwidth availability, exhaustive internet-wide scans of full IPv4 address space have become the norm after it was once impractical. Projects like Shodan and Scans.i...

Magic AirMusic Insufficient Access Control Vulnerability

Various products of multiple vendors using the Magic AirMusic web interface for the control of the device are prone to an insufficient access control vulnerability. Copyright C 2019 Greenbone Networks GmbH SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later This program is free software; you can redistribu...

Zero-Days in Counter-Strike Client Used to Build Major Botnet

A proprietor of a Counter-Strike gaming server promotion service has used multiple zero-days in the Counter-Strike client to create a large botnet. The network is made up of fake game servers for the popular online multiplayer game. The attacker has had quite a bit of success. In a recent analysi...

GlitchPOS Malware Appears to Steal Credit-Card Numbers

A new insidious malware bent on siphoning credit-card numbers from point-of-sale PoS systems has recently been spotted on a crimeware forum. Researchers at Cisco Talos said in a Wednesday analysis that they discovered the malware, dubbed “GlitchPOS,” being peddled on the Dark Web for $250. The...

Emotet revisited: pervasive threat still a danger to businesses

One of the most common and pervasive threats for businesses today is Emotet, a banking Trojan turned downloader that has been on our list of top 10 detections for many months in a row. Emotet, which Malwarebytes detects as Trojan.Emotet, has been leveled at consumers and organizations across the...

Zero-Day Flaws in Counter-Strike 1.6 Let Malicious Servers Hack Gamers' PCs

If you are a Counter-Strike gamer, then beware, because 39% of all existing Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers available online are malicious that have been set-up to remotely hack gamers' computers. A team of cybersecurity researchers at Dr. Web has disclosed that an attacker has been using malicio...

Zero-Day Flaws in Counter-Strike 1.6 Let Malicious Servers Hack Gamers' PCs

If you are a Counter-Strike gamer, then beware, because 39% of all existing Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers available online are malicious that have been set-up to remotely hack gamers' computers. A team of cybersecurity researchers at Dr. Web has disclosed that an attacker has been using malicio...

GlitchPOS: New PoS malware for sale

Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres authored this post with contributions from Ben Baker. Executive summary Point-of-sale malware is popular among attackers, as it usually leads to them obtaining credit card numbers and immediately use that information for financial gain. This type of malware is...

Necurs Botnet Evolves to Hide in the Shadows, with New Payloads

Necurs, the prolific and globally dispersed spam and malware distribution botnet, has been spotted using a fresh hiding technique to avoid detection while quietly adding more bots to its web. According to research from Black Lotus Labs, which is telecom and ISP provider CenturyLink’s network...

New GandCrab Decryptor Unlocks Files of Updated Ransomware

Yet another free decryptor is available for GandCrab ransomware victims. The tool, released Tuesday, is the third decryptor update in the past year that thwarts the prolific and fast-evolving GandCrab ransomware. Europol police announced availability of the update, which now unlocks data encrypte...

BoNeSi - The DDoS Botnet Simulator

BoNeSi , the DDoS Botnet Simulator is a Tool to simulate Botnet Traffic in a testbed environment on the wire. It is designed to study the effect of DDoS attacks. What traffic can be generated? BoNeSi generates ICMP, UDP and TCP HTTP flooding attacks from a defined botnet size different IP...

ThreatList: Latest DDoS Trends by the Numbers

Fresh statistics reveal a mix bag of good news and bad when it comes to distributed denial-of-service attacks in Q4 2018. According to the latest numbers available, the sheer number of attacks are down, but the length of time those attacks last have reached record lengths. The numbers come from...

Super-systemic IoT flaws

IoT security flaws were always systemic: by that I mean that if I find a flaw in my smart thermostat, it affects ALL of those thermostats. A security problem with one connected car leads to problems with ALL the connected cars using that same system. That led to incidents such as the Mirai botnet...

The Challenges of DIY Botnet Detection – and How to Overcome Them

Botnets have been around for over two decades, and with the rise of the Internet of Things IoT they have spread further to devices no one imagined they would - printers, webcams, and even toasters and fridges. Some botnets enlist infected devices to mine cryptocurrency or steal passwords from oth...