Exploit kits: fall 2019 review

Despite a slim browser market share, Internet Explorer is still being exploited in fall 2019 in a number of drive-by download campaigns. Perhaps even more surprising, we're seeing new exploit kits emerge. Based on our telemetry, these drive-bys are happening worldwide with the exception of a few...

Threat Analysis Unit (TAU) Threat Intelligence Notification: AsyncRAT

AsyncRAT is a Remote Access Tool RAT designed to remotely monitor and control other computers through a secure encrypted connection. It is an open source remote administration tool, however, it could also be used maliciously because it provides functionality such as keylogger, remote desktop...

Internet Explorer RCE through scripting engine memory corruption (IE 9, 10, 11)

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer, aka ‘Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability’. This CVE ID is unique from CVE-2019-1426, CVE-2019-1427, CVE-2019-1428. Recent assessments: busterb at November...

Malvertising Attack Hijacks 1B+ Sessions With Webkit Exploit

Researchers have discovered a new wave of attacks launched by the threat group eGobbler where victims are redirected to websites with malicious payloads. Security experts believe eGobbler was behind this year’s prolific Easter malvertising attack. This time, more than 1 billion ad impressions wer...

Over A Billion Malicious Ad Impressions Exploit WebKit Flaw to Target Apple Users

The infamous eGobbler hacking group that surfaced online earlier this year with massive malvertising campaigns has now been caught running a new campaign exploiting two browser vulnerabilities to show intrusive pop-up ads and forcefully redirect users to malicious websites. To be noted, hackers...

Over A Billion Malicious Ad Impressions Exploit WebKit Flaw to Target Apple Users

The infamous eGobbler hacking group that surfaced online earlier this year with massive malvertising campaigns has now been caught running a new campaign exploiting two browser vulnerabilities to show intrusive pop-up ads and forcefully redirect users to malicious websites. To be noted, hackers...

Unpatched Bug Under Active Attack Threatens WordPress Sites with XSS

An unpatched vulnerability in the Rich Reviews plugin for WordPress is putting an estimated 16,000 sites in danger of stored cross-site scripting XSS attacks. Sites running the plugin are vulnerable to unauthenticated plugin option updates, which can be used to deliver malware payloads; and...

WordPress Plugins Anchor Widespread Malvertising, Rogue Backdoor Campaign

A malvertising campaign redirecting website visitors and surfacing popups is plaguing the WordPress ecosystem, according to researchers, using known vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins as the attack vector. The campaign has been ongoing all summer, with cybercrooks bent on redirecting website...

New social engineering toolkit draws inspiration from previous web campaigns

Some of the most common web threats we track have a social engineering component. Perhaps the more popular ones are those encountered via malvertising, or hacked websites that push fraudulent updates. We recently identified a website compromise with a scheme we had not seen before; it's part of a...

Beers with Talos Ep. #59: The tardy episode

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 59 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded 8/2/19 - Yes, I know what today’s date is. We got really busy last week and I am sorry that the podcast is late...

Say hello to Lord Exploit Kit

Just as we had wrapped up our summer review of exploit kits, a new player entered the scene. Lord EK, as it is calling itself, was caught by Virus Bulletin's Adrian Luca while replaying malvertising chains. In this blog post, we do a quick review of this exploit kit based on what we have collecte...

Malvertising Campaigns Skirt Ad Blockers, Serve Up Mac Malware

Two fresh malvertising campaigns are making the scene that are abusing the convoluted underpinnings of the internet economy to find malware victims. One is a large-scale exploit kit EK campaign designed to circumvent traditional safeguards, such as ad blockers, and the other uses web redirects to...

Malvertising: Online advertising's darker side

By Nick Biasini, Chris Neal and Matt Valites. Executive summary One of the trickiest challenges enterprises face is managing the balance between aggressively blocking malicious advertisements aka malvertising and allowing content to remain online, accessible for the average user. The days of...

Exploit kits: summer 2019 review

In the months since our last spring review, there has been some interesting activity from several exploit kits. While the playing field remains essentially the same with Internet Explorer and Flash Player as the most-commonly-exploited pieces of software, it is undeniable that there has been a...

WordPress Plugin Flaws Exploited in Ongoing Malvertising Campaign

A widespread and ongoing malicious advertising campaign is exploiting several recently-disclosed WordPress plugin vulnerabilities to redirect website visitors to booby-trapped landing pages. Researchers at Wordfence said that they recently discovered bad actors injecting code into websites with t...

Threat Spotlight: Sodinokibi ransomware attempts to fill GandCrab void

Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as Sodin and REvil, is hardly three months old, yet it has quickly become a topic of discussion among cybersecurity professionals because of its apparent connection with the infamous-but-now-defunct GandCrab ransomware. Detected by Malwarebytes as...

Massive Malvertising Campaign Reaches 100M Ads, Manipulates Supply Chain

A Hong Kong-based advertiser has mounted a snowballing campaign, compromising more than 100 million ads to date by forming relationships with legitimate ad platforms to gain access to premium audiences. From there, it often pushes malware onto victim machines. The malvertiser, operating under the...

CB TAU Threat Intelligence Notification: Buran Ransomware

Recently there was malvertising campaign which would redirect users to RIG exploit kit and then infecting victim’s computer with a new ransomware named as Buran Ransomware. It will drop a ransom note named ‘!!! YOUR FILES ARE ENCRYPTED !!!.txt’ and append victim’s personal ID as extensions to the...

A week in security (June 24 – 30)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we peeled back the mystery on an elusive malware campaign that relied on blank JavaScript injections, detailed for readers our latest telemetry on the tricky GreenFlash Sundown exploit, and looked at one of the top campaigns directing traffic toward scareware pages...

This Week in Security News: Malvertising and Internet of Things Malware

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about a new Internet of Things malware that’s bricked thousands of devices. Also, read about a ransomware family that’s using...