351 matches found
Microsoft Temporarily Rolls Back Plan to Block Office VBA Macros by Default
Five months after announcing plans to disable Visual Basic for Applications VBA macros by default in the Office productivity suite, Microsoft appears to have rolled back its plans. "Based on feedback received, a rollback has started," Microsoft employee Angela Robertson said in a July 6 comment...
Researchers Warn of Spam Campaign Targeting Victims with SVCReady Malware
A new wave of phishing campaigns has been observed spreading a previously documented malware called SVCReady. "The malware is notable for the unusual way it is delivered to target PCs — using shellcode hidden in the properties of Microsoft Office documents," Patrick Schläpfer, a threat analyst at...
Emotet Testing New Delivery Ideas After Microsoft Disables VBA Macros by Default
The threat actor behind the prolific Emotet botnet is testing new attack methods on a small scale before co-opting them into their larger volume malspam campaigns, potentially in response to Microsoft's move to disable Visual Basic for Applications VBA macros by default across its products. Calli...
What’s with the shared VBA code between Transparent Tribe and other threat actors?
By Vanja Svajcer and Vitor Ventura. Recently, we've been researching several threat actors operating in South Asia: Transparent Tribe, SideCopy, etc., that deploy a range of remote access trojans RATs. After a hunting session in our malware sample repositories and VirusTotal while looking into...
Microsoft takes macros out of the equation for five Office apps
Microsoft says it is going to disable macros in five Office apps by default. Besides Excel 4.0 macros, which were disabled by default last month, now VBA macros obtained from the Internet will be blocked by default as well. The change will begin rolling out in Version 2203, starting with Current...
Microsoft Disables Internet Macros in Office Apps by Default to Block Malware Attacks
Microsoft on Monday said it's taking steps to disable Visual Basic for Applications VBA macros by default across its products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Visio, for documents downloaded from the web in an attempt to eliminate an entire class of attack vector. "Bad actors send...
Mageia: Security Advisory (MGASA-2014-0447)
The remote host is missing an update for the SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2022 Greenbone AG Some text descriptions might be excerpted from a referenced sources, and are Copyright C by the respective right holders. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only ifdescription...
CVE-2021-42295 Visual Basic for Applications Information Disclosure Vulnerability
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Stealthy ‘WIRTE’ Gang Targets Middle Eastern Governments
A threat actor tracked as WIRTE has been assaulting Middle East governments since at least 2019 using “living-off-the-land” techniques and malicious Excel 4.0 macros. On Monday, Kaspersky reported that it observed the group in February using Microsoft Excel droppers, which planted hidden...
WIRTE Hacker Group Targets Government, Law, Financial Entities in Middle East
Government, diplomatic entities, military organizations, law firms, and financial institutions primarily located in the Middle East have been targeted as part of a stealthy malware campaign as early as 2019 by making use of malicious Microsoft Excel and Word documents. Russian cybersecurity compa...
At long last, Microsoft is disabling Excel 4.0 macros by default
Sometimes good news in the security world comes unexpectedly. This is one of those times. After three decades of macro viruses, and three decades of trying to convince every single Excel user individually to disable macros, Microsoft is going disable Excel 4.0 macros for everyone. Better late tha...
FIN7 Capitalizes on Windows 11 Release in Latest Gambit
The FIN7 financial cybercrime gang is back, delivering JavaScript backdoors using Word documents themed around the next version of Windows. That’s according to researchers at Anomali, who observed a recent campaign from the group that leveraged six different docs, all referencing “Windows 11 Alph...
NK Hackers Deploy Browser Exploits on South Korean Sites to Spread Malware
A North Korean threat actor has been discovered taking advantage of two exploits in Internet Explorer to infect victims with a custom implant as part of a strategic web compromise SWC targeting a South Korean online newspaper. Cybersecurity firm Volexity attributed the watering hole attacks to a...
A week in security (July 26 – August 1)
Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: OSX.XLoader hides little except its main purpose: What we learned in the installation process. The Clubhouse database “breach” is likely a non-breach. Here’s why. Kaseya Unitrends has unpatched vulnerabilities that could help attackers expand a breach. UDP Technolo...
Hackers Exploit Microsoft Browser Bug to Deploy VBA Malware on Targeted PCs
An unidentified threat actor has been exploiting a now-patched zero-day flaw in Internet Explorer browser to deliver a fully-featured VBA-based remote access trojan RAT capable of accessing files stored in compromised Windows systems, and downloading and executing malicious payloads as part of an...
Crimea “manifesto” deploys VBA Rat using double attack vectors
This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi. On July 21, 2021, we identified a suspicious document named "Манифест.docx" "Manifest.docx" that downloads and executes two templates: one is macro-enabled and the other is an html object that contains an Internet Explorer exploit. While both technique...
Microsoft Office Users Face Malware-Protection Bypass
Legacy users of Microsoft Excel are being targeted in a malware campaign that uses a novel malware-obfuscation technique to disable Office defenses and deliver the Zloader trojan. The attack, according to research published Thursday by McAfee, marries functions in Microsoft Office Word and Excel ...
Description of the security update for Office 2016: March 9, 2021 (KB4493225)
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XLM + AMSI: New runtime defense against Excel 4.0 macro malware
We have recently expanded the integration of Antimalware Scan Interface AMSI with Office 365 to include the runtime scanning of Excel 4.0 XLM macros, to help antivirus solutions tackle the increase in attacks that use malicious XLM macros. This integration, an example of the many security feature...