malware – Page 14 – SSL and internet security news

WikiLeaks Releases CIA Hacking Tools

March 7, 2017 infossl

cia, cyberwar, hacking, malware, redaction, Security technology, wikileaks, zeroday

WikiLeaks just released a cache of 8,761 classified CIA documents from 2012 to 2016, including details of its offensive Internet operations. I have not read through any of them yet. If you see something interesting, tell us in the comments. EDITED TO ADD: There’s a lot in here. Many of the hacking tools are redacted, … Read More “WikiLeaks Releases CIA Hacking Tools” »

Duqu Malware Techniques Used by Cybercriminals

February 16, 2017 infossl

cybercrime, kaspersky, malware, nsa, Security technology, stuxnet, zeroday

Duqu 2.0 is a really impressive piece of malware, related to Stuxnet and probably written by the NSA. One of its security features is that it stays resident in its host’s memory without ever writing persistent files to the system’s drives. Now, this same technique is being used by criminals: Now, fileless malware is going … Read More “Duqu Malware Techniques Used by Cybercriminals” »

Russian Military Using Smartphones to Track Troop Movements

December 23, 2016 infossl

cellphones, geolocation, malware, military, Security technology

Crowdstrike has an interesting blog post about how the Russian military is tracking Ukrainian field artillery units by compromising soldiers’ smartphones and tracking them. News article. Powered by WPeMatico

Smartphone Spying as Art

December 19, 2016 infossl

cellphones, malware, Security technology, spyware, theft

A film student put spyware on a smartphone and then allowed it to be stolen. He made a movie of the results. Powered by WPeMatico

Ransomware Meets Multi-level Marketing

December 12, 2016 infossl

malware, marketing, ransomware, Security technology

A new ransomware, Popcorn Time, gives users the option of infecting others in lieu of paying the ransom. Related: a good general article on ransomware. EDITED TO ADD: Slashdot thread. Powered by WPeMatico

WWW Malware Hides in Images

December 7, 2016 infossl

adware, exploits, malware, Security technology, steganography

There’s new malware toolkit that uses steganography to hide in images: For the past two months, a new exploit kit has been serving malicious code hidden in the pixels of banner ads via a malvertising campaign that has been active on several high profile websites. Discovered by security researchers from ESET, this new exploit kit … Read More “WWW Malware Hides in Images” »

Headphones as Microphones

November 23, 2016 infossl

eavesdropping, malware, Security technology, spyware

Surprising no one who has been following this sort of thing, headphones can be used as microphones. Powered by WPeMatico

Self-Propagating Smart Light Bulb Worm

November 9, 2016 infossl

academicpapers, aes, authentication, cryptography, encryption, internetofthings, malware, Security technology, sidechannelattacks

This is exactly the sort of Internet-of-Things attack that has me worried: “IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction” by Eyal Ronen, Colin OFlynn, Adi Shamir and Achi-Or Weingarten. Abstract: Within the next few years, billions of IoT devices will densely populate our cities. In this paper we describe a new type of threat … Read More “Self-Propagating Smart Light Bulb Worm” »

Bypassing Intel's ASLR

October 19, 2016 infossl

academicpapers, intel, malware, mitigation, Security technology, sidechannelattacks

Researchers discover a clever attack that bypasses the address space layout randomization (ALSR) on Intel’s CPUs. Here’s the paper. It discusses several possible mitigation techniques. Powered by WPeMatico

Malware Tries to Detect Test Environment

September 28, 2016 infossl

malware, Security technology

A new malware tries to detect if it’s running in a virtual machine or sandboxed test environment by looking for signs of normal use and not executing if they’re not there. From a news article: A typical test environment consists of a fresh Windows computer image loaded into a VM environment. The OS image usually … Read More “Malware Tries to Detect Test Environment” »