Gunter Ollmann on the Future of Ransomware, Exploit Kits, and IoT

LAS VEGAS—Gunter Ollmann, CSO at Vectra networks, talks to Mike Mimoso at Black Hat about ransomware as a prototype for malware going forward, as well as the long-term future of exploit kits and whether IoT is something that can be secured sooner rather than later. Download:...

SoakSoak Botnet Pushing Neutrino Exploit Kit and CryptXXX Ransomware

Researchers are reporting a surge in CryptXXX ransomware infections delivered via business websites compromised to redirect to the Neutrino Exploit Kit. Attackers are targeting websites running the Revslider slideshow plugin for WordPress, according to a report released Tuesday by Invincea. Behin...

Exploit Kits Quickly Adopt Exploit Thanks to Open Source Release

A security researcher recently published source code for a working exploit for CVE-2016-0189 and the Neutrino Exploit Kit EK quickly adopted it. CVE-2016-0189 was originally exploited as a zero-day vulnerability in targeted attacks in Asia. The vulnerability resides within scripting engines in...

Exploit Kits Quickly Adopt Exploit Thanks to Open Source Release

A security researcher recently published source code for a working exploit for CVE-2016-0189 and the Neutrino Exploit Kit EK quickly adopted it. CVE-2016-0189 was originally exploited as a zero-day vulnerability in targeted attacks in Asia. The vulnerability resides within scripting engines in...

MSRT July 2016 – Cerber ransomware

As part of our ongoing effort to provide better malware protection, the July 2016 release of the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool MSRT includes detection for Win32/Cerber, a prevalent ransomware family. The inclusion in MSRT complements our Cerber-specific family detections in Windows...

The Changing Face of Pseudo-Darkleech

The pseudo-Darkleech campaign is one of the most notorious and ongoing attacks of recent years, making use of major exploit kits to deliver primarily different strains of ransomware. The campaign has been a bit of chameleon since it was disclosed in March 2015 by researchers at Sucuri. The latest...

On the Rise of Ransomware, Bitcoin Phishing, and Exploit Kits

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook recap the news of the week, including a Bitcoin phishing campaign, the Kaspersky Lab ransomware report, misconfigured email servers, and a decline in Angler exploit kit traffic. Download: ThreatpostNewsWrapJune242016.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves...

Updated CryptXXX Ransomware Big Money Potential

CryptXXX ransomware has received a major overhaul by its authors, putting it on the fast track to unseat Locky as top moneymaker for criminals. Researchers at Proofpoint said that on May 26, cybercriminals released an updated CryptXXX 3.100 version of the ransomware that includes a new StillerX...

Exploit Kits Attacking Adobe Flash Player Zero Day

Update Exploits for the most recent Adobe Flash Player zero-day vulnerability have been integrated into the Angler, Neutrino and Magnitude exploit kits, and are leading compromised computers to different ransomware strains, banking malware, and a credential-stealing Trojan. A French researcher wh...

Cerber Ransomware Partners with the Dridex Spam Distributor

Cerber ransomware incorporates the unusual feature of “speaking” its ransom message after successfully infecting a user machine and encrypting files. Cerber was first seen in the wild at the end of February 2016 and was observed being delivered mostly via exploit kits EK, notably using Magnitude...

Cerber Ransomware Partners with the Dridex Spam Distributor

Cerber ransomware incorporates the unusual feature of “speaking” its ransom message after successfully infecting a user machine and encrypting files. Cerber was first seen in the wild at the end of February 2016 and was observed being delivered mostly via exploit kits EK, notably using Magnitude...

Adobe Emergency Update Patches Flash Zero Day

As promised earlier this week, Adobe today released an updated version of Flash Player that includes a patch for a zero-day vulnerability. Adobe said it is aware of the existence of a public exploit for CVE-2016-4117, but said the flaw has not been publicly attacked. The vulnerability affects Fla...

Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Top Takeaways

Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report painted a bleak picture when it comes to malware, fraudulent login attempts and the staying power of really old exploits. Key findings in the 198-page biannual report run the gamut illustrating how old threats die hard and what new threats are on the...

Adobe Analytics AppMeasurement for Flash Library Patch

Adobe today patched a vulnerability in the Adobe Analytics AppMeasurement for Flash library, which can be added to Flash projects to measure the usage of Flash-based content. The vulnerability is a DOM-based cross-site scripting flaw that can be abused for cookie theft, said researcher Randy...

Direct Communication with Webmasters Fixes Bugs Quicker

Google has trumpeted its Safe Browsing alerts as a key component in redirecting victims away from potentially malicious websites. An offshoot of that work is that apparently webmasters heed those warnings too and remediate vulnerabilities and bugs quicker. A co-branded study between Google and th...

Latest Flash Zero Day Being Used to Push Ransomware

Exploits for a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player are being aggressively distributed in two exploit kits. The zero day, meanwhile, was patched by Adobe in an emergency update released Thursday night. Attackers are using the previously unpatched flaw in the maligned Flash Player to infec...

Angler Exploit Kit Attacks Silverlight Vulnerability

Exploits for a vulnerability in Microsoft Silverlight have found their way into the dangerous Angler Exploit Kit a little more than a month after it was patched. French security researcher Kafeine said he was able to get independent confirmation from researchers at Kaspersky Lab that the exploit...

Joomla Joins WordPress As TeslaCrypt Ransomware Target

Exploit kits infecting thousands of WordPress websites are setting their sights on the open-source content management system Joomla in a new campaign spotted by a researcher at the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center. “The group behind the WordPress ‘admedia’ campaign is now apparently targeti...

Nuclear Exploit Kit Spreading Cryptowall 4.0 Ransomware

In short order, the newest version of Cryptowall has begun showing up in exploit kits. The SANS Internet Storm Center said on Tuesday that an attacker working off domains belonging to Chinese registrar BizCN has been moving the ransomware via the Nuclear Exploit Kit. SANS ISC handler and Rackspac...

Tinba Variant Spotted Targeting Russian, Japanese Banks

Cybercriminals behind the Tinba banking Trojan have been homing in on some of the larger banks in Russia and Japan, experts claim. According to researchers with Dell SecureWorks, who looked at an instance of the malware last month, configuration files in one variant are targeting one of the...