Tax refund, or How to lose your remaining cash

Every year, vast numbers of people around the globe relish the delightful prospect of filling out tax returns, applying for tax refunds, etc. Given that tax authorities and their taxpayers are moving online, it's no surprise to find cybercriminals hard on their heels. By spoofing trusted governme...

Disappearing bytes: Reverse engineering the MS Office RTF parser

Microsoft Office was a prime target for attacks in 2017. As well as the large number of vulnerabilities discovered and proof-of-concept exploits published, malware authors felt it necessary to prevent detection of 'one-day' and 'old-day' exploits by antivirus software. It also became clear that...

A Slice of 2017 Sofacy Activity

Sofacy, also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, and Tsar Team, is a highly active and prolific APT. From their high volume 0day deployment to their innovative and broad malware set, Sofacy is one of the top groups that we monitor, report, and protect against. 2017 was not any different in this regard. O...

Spam and phishing in 2017

Figures of the year The share of spam in mail traffic came to 56.63%, down 1.68% against 2016. The biggest source of spam remains the US 13.21%. 40% of spam emails were less than 2 KB in size. The most common malware family found in mail traffic was Trojan-Downloader.JS.Sload The Anti-Phishing...

Bingo, Amigo! Jackpotting: ATM malware from Latin America to the World

Introduction Of all the forms of attack against financial institutions around the world, the one that brings traditional crime and cybercrime together the most is the malicious ecosystem that exists around ATM malware. Criminals from different backgrounds work together with a single goal in mind:...

Zero-day vulnerability in Telegram

In October 2017, we learned of a vulnerability in Telegram Messenger's Windows client that was being exploited in the wild. It involves the use of a classic right-to-left override attack when a user sends files over the messenger service. Right-to-left override in a nutshell The special nonprinti...

A vulnerable driver: lesson almost learned

Recently, we started receiving suspicious events from our internal sandbox Exploit Checker plugin. Our heuristics for supervisor mode code execution in the user address space were constantly being triggered, and an executable file was being flagged for further analysis. At first, it looked like...

Gas is too expensive? Let’s make it cheap!

A few months ago, while undertaking unrelated research into online connected devices, we uncovered something surprising and realized almost immediately that we could be looking at a critical security threat. What we found was a simple purple web interface that was in fact a link to a real-life ga...

BSides NYC, a volunteer organized event put on by and for the community

Another edition of BSides NYC has passed, and as first time attendee and presenter, I was genuinely impressed with the impeccable organization, the content shared, and the interesting conversations that took place among enthusiasts and professionals from all over the world. I've been a long time...

DDoS attacks in Q4 2017

News overview In terms of news about DDoS attacks, the last quarter of 2017 was livelier than the previous one. Some major botnets were discovered and destroyed. For instance, early December saw the FBI, Microsoft, and Europol team up to knock out the Andromeda botnet, in operation since 2011. In...

Every little bitcoin helps

It often happens that inventions and technologies that start out good end up turning into dangerous tools in the hands of criminals. Blockchain is no exception to this rule, especially in its most common cryptocurrency incarnation. Cryptocurrencies crop up in all kinds of spam: from traditional...

Cybercriminals target early IRS 2018 refunds now

On Monday, Jan 29th, IRS officially opened its 2018 season. Some taxpayers already filed their taxes and cybercriminals know it too. So, right after two days of the official 2018 season opening, we got phishing messages with a fake refund status Websites: The link in the email leads to a hacked...

Denis and Co.

In April 2017, we published a detailed review of a malicious program that used DNS tunneling to communicate to its C&C. That study prompted us to develop a technology to detect similar threats, which allowed us to collect a multitude of malware samples using DNS tunneling. In this article, we wil...

A silver bullet for the attacker

In the past years, the problem of vulnerabilities in industrial automation systems has been becoming increasingly important. The fact that industrial control systems have been developing in parallel with IT systems, relatively independently and often without regard for modern secure coding...

Skygofree: Following in the footsteps of HackingTeam

At the beginning of October 2017, we discovered new Android spyware with several features previously unseen in the wild. In the course of further research, we found a number of related samples that point to a long-term development process. We believe the initial versions of this malware were...

Happy IR in the New Year!

At the end of last year Mr. Jake Williams from aka @MalwareJake asked a very important question about Lack of visibility during detecting APT intrusions in twitter. Results show us that endpoint analysis is the most important part of any research connected with APTs. Also, for sure endpoint...

Nhash: petty pranks with big finances

According to our data, cryptocurrency miners are rapidly gaining in popularity. In an earlier publication we noted that cybercriminals were making use of social engineering to install this sort of software on users' computers. This time, we'd like to dwell more on how exactly the computers of...

Travle aka PYLOT backdoor hits Russian-speaking targets

At the end of September, Palo Alto released a report on Unit42 activity where they - among other things – talked about PYLOT malware. We have been detecting attacks that have employed the use of this backdoor since at least 2015 and refer to it as Travle. Coincidentally, KL was recently involved ...

Jack of all trades

Nowadays, it's all too easy to end up with malicious apps on your smartphone, even if you're using the official Google Play app store. The situation gets even worse when you go somewhere other than the official store – fake applications, limited security checks, and so on. However, the spread of...

Kaspersky Security Bulletin. Overall statistics for 2017

All the statistics used in this report were obtained using Kaspersky Security Network KSN, a distributed antivirus network that works with various anti-malware protection components. The data was collected from KSN users who agreed to provide it. Millions of Kaspersky Lab product users from 213...

Still Stealing

Two years ago in October 2015 we published a blogpost about a popular malware that was being distributed from the Google Play Store. Over the next two years we detected several similar apps on Google Play, but in October and November 2017 we found 85 new malicious apps on Google Play that are...

Cybercriminals vs financial institutions in 2018: what to expect

Introduction – key events in 2017 2017 was a year of great changes in the world of cyberthreats facing financial organizations. Firstly, in 2017 we witnessed a continuation of cyberattacks targeting systems running SWIFT — a fundamental part of the world's financial ecosystem. Attackers were able...

Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Review of the Year 2017

Introduction The end of the year is a good time to take stock of the main cyberthreat incidents that took place over the preceding 12 months or so. To reflect on the impact these events had on organizations and individuals, and consider what they could mean for the overall evolution of the threat...

Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Story of the year 2017

Download the Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Story of the year 2017 Introduction: what we learned in 2017 In 2017, the ransomware threat suddenly and spectacularly evolved. Three unprecedented outbreaks transformed the landscape for ransomware, probably forever. The attacks targeted businesses and...

IoT lottery: finding a perfectly secure connected device

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great for shopping. Vendors flood the market with all kinds of goods, including lots of exciting connected devices that promise to make our life easier, happier and more comfortable. Being enthusiastic shoppers just like many other people around the world, at...

Android commercial spyware

There's certainly no shortage of commercial spying apps for Android, with most positioned as parental control tools. In reality, however, these apps barely differ from spyware, with the exception perhaps of the installation method. There's no need to even resort to Tor Browser or other darknet...

Threat Predictions for Connected Life in 2018

Download the Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Threat Predictions for Connected Life in 2018 Introduction: To be awake is to be online The average home now has around three connected computers and four smart mobile devices. Hardly surprising, considering that 86 per cent of us check the Internet sever...

Kaspersky Lab – Beyond Black Friday Threat Report, November 2017

Introduction The festive holiday shopping season, which covers Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in late November as well as Christmas in December, now accounts for a significant share of annual sales for retailers, particularly in the U.S., Europe and APAC. Those selling clothing,...

Investigation Report for the September 2014 Equation malware detection incident in the US

Background In early October, a story was published by the Wall Street Journal alleging Kaspersky Lab software was used to siphon classified data from an NSA employee's home computer system. Given that Kaspersky Lab has been at the forefront of fighting cyberespionage and cybercriminal activities ...

Threat Predictions for Cryptocurrencies in 2018

The landscape in 2017 Today, cryptocurrency is no longer only for computer geeks and IT pros. It's starting to affect people's daily life more than they realize. At the same time, it is fast becoming an attractive target for cybercriminals. Some cyberthreats have been inherited from e-payments,...

Threat Predictions for Financial Services and Fraud in 2018

The landscape in 2017 In 2017 we've seen fraud attacks in financial services become increasingly account-centric. Customer data is a key enabler for large-scale fraud attacks and the frequency of data breaches among other successful attack types has provided cybercriminals with valuable sources o...

Threat Predictions for Connected Health in 2018

The landscape in 2017 In 2017, Kaspersky Lab research revealed the extent to which medical information and patient data stored within the connected healthcare infrastructure is left unprotected and accessible online for any motivated cybercriminal to discover. For example, we found open access to...

Threat Predictions for Automotive in 2018

The landscape in 2017 Modern cars are no longer just electro-mechanical vehicles. With each generation, they become more connected and incorporate more intelligent technologies to make them smarter, more efficient, comfortable and safe. The connected-car market is growing at a five-year compound...

Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Threat Predictions for 2018

Download the Kaspersky Security Bulletin: Threat Predictions for 2018 Introduction As hard as it is to believe, it's once again time for our APT Predictions. Looking back at a year like 2017 brings the internal conflict of being a security researcher into full view: on the one hand, each new even...

Threat Predictions for Industrial Security in 2018

The landscape in 2017 2017 was one of the most intense in terms of incidents affecting the information security of industrial systems. Security researchers discovered and reported hundreds of new vulnerabilities, warned of new threat vectors in ICS and technological processes, provided data on...

APT Trends report Q3 2017

Introduction Beginning in the second quarter of 2017, Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team GReAT began publishing summaries of the quarter's private threat intelligence reports in an effort to make the public aware of what research we have been conducting. This report serves as the next...

IT threat evolution Q3 2017. Statistics

Q3 figures According to KSN data, Kaspersky Lab solutions detected and repelled 277,646,376 malicious attacks from online resources located in 185 countries all over the world. 72,012,219 unique URLs were recognized as malicious by web antivirus components. Attempted infections by malware that ai...

IT threat evolution Q3 2017

Targeted attacks and malware campaigns Re-enter the dragon In July, we reported on the recent activities of a targeted attack group called 'Spring Dragon' also known as LotusBlossom, whose activities data back to 2012. Spring Dragon makes extensive use of spear-phishing and watering-hole attacks...

Using legitimate tools to hide malicious code

The authors of malware use various techniques to circumvent defensive mechanisms and conceal harmful activity. One of them is the practice of hiding malicious code in the context of a trusted process. Typically, malware that uses concealment techniques injects its code into a system process, e.g...

DDoS attacks in Q3 2017

News Overview In the third quarter of 2017, the trends of the preceding quarters continued to develop further. The number of DDoS attacks in China, the United States, South Korea and Russia increased, which were reflected in the statistics we gathered for botnets. A sharp surge in the number more...

Spam and phishing in Q3 2017

Quarterly highlights Blockchain and spam Cryptocurrencies have been a regular theme in the media for several years now. Financial analysts predict a great future for them, various governments are thinking about launching their own currencies, and graphics cards are swept off the shelves as soon a...

Silence – a new Trojan attacking financial organizations

More information about the Silence Trojan is available to customers of Kaspersky Intelligence Reporting Service. Contact: [email protected] In September 2017, we discovered a new targeted attack on financial institutions. Victims are mostly Russian banks but we also found infected...

Tales from the blockchain

Cryptocurrency has gradually evolved from an element of a new world, utopian economy to a business that has affected even those sectors of society least involved in information technology. At the same time, it has acquired a fair number of "undesirable" supporters who aim to enrich themselves at...

Gaza Cybergang – updated activity in 2017:

1. Summary information The Gaza cybergang is an Arabic-language, politically-motivated cybercriminal group, operating since 2012 and actively targeting the MENA Middle East North Africa region. The Gaza cybergang's attacks have never slowed down and its typical targets include government...

Analyzing an exploit for СVE-2017-11826

The latest Patch Tuesday 17 October brought patches for 62 vulnerabilities, including one that fixed СVE-2017-11826 – a critical zero-day vulnerability used to launch targeted attacks – in all versions of Microsoft Office. The exploit for this vulnerability is an RTF document containing a DOCX...

Bad Rabbit ransomware

UPDATE 27.10.2017. Decryption opportunity assessment. File recovery possibility. Verdicts What happened? On October 24th we observed notifications of mass attacks with ransomware called Bad Rabbit. It has been targeting organizations and consumers, mostly in Russia but there have also been report...

Dangerous liaisons

It seems just about everyone has written about the dangers of online dating, from psychology magazines to crime chronicles. But there is one less obvious threat not related to hooking up with strangers – and that is the mobile apps used to facilitate the process. We're talking here about...

ATM malware is being sold on Darknet market

Disclaimer and warning ATM systems appear to be very secure, but the money can be accessed fairly easily if you know what you are doing. Criminals are exploiting hardware and software vulnerabilities to interact with ATMs, meaning they need to be made more secure. This can be achieved with the he...

BlackOasis APT and new targeted attacks leveraging zero-day exploit

More information about BlackOasis APT is available to customers of Kaspersky Intelligence Reporting Service. Contact: [email protected] Introduction Kaspersky Lab has always worked closely with vendors to protect users. As soon as we find new vulnerabilities we immediately inform the...

ATMii: a small but effective ATM robber

While some criminals blow up ATMs to steal cash, others use less destructive methods, such as infecting the ATM with malware and then stealing the money. We have written about this phenomenon extensively in the past and today we can add another family of malware to the list - Backdoor.Win32.ATMii...