Research: proper screening could have prevented 67% of abusive domain registrations
On a daily basis, spammers register thousands of new domains across multiple domain registrars, and take advantage of WHOIS privacy services to ensure that security researchers and anti-spam fighters will have hard time taking them down. So what can we do about it?
According to a newly released research by Knujon.com, proper screening could have prevented 67% of those abusive domain registrations.
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A peek inside the Darkness (Optima) DDoS Bot
With politically motivated DDoS (distributed denial of service attack) attacks proliferating along with the overall increase in the supply of managed “DDoS for hire” services, it’s time to get back the basics, and find out just what makes an average DDoS bot used by cybercriminals successful.
Continuing the “A peek inside…” series, in this post I’ll profile the Darkness X (Optima) DDoS bot, available for purchase at selected cybercrime-friendly online communities since 2009.
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Spamvertised ‘Temporary Limit Access To Your Account’ emails lead to Citi phishing emails
Cybercriminals are currently spamvertising a fraudulent email campaign impersonating Citi, using ‘Temporary Limit Access To Your Account‘ themed emails as a social engineering attempt to trick end users into clicking on the link found in the phishing emails.
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Evolution of Android Malware “The touch, the feel of being tricked into sending premium SMS messages, the worst feeling of our lives” (Part 3)
by Nathan Collier
Android.SMS.FakeInst is a Trojan that aims to do one thing — trick users into sending premium SMS messages by pretending to be an install for an app. Here’s how the scam works: The user sends three premium SMS messages in exchange for an app, but there is no guarantee that it will actually install anything after they already have your money. These malicious apps are getting harder and harder to discern as malicious as the look and feel of these apps get better through newer iterations. One variant of these Trojan apps, which comes from a known malicious site, looks better with each update. Let’s start with one of the first iterations of this variant.
The icon looks fairly convincing:
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New service converts malware-infected hosts into anonymization proxies
What happens when a host gets infected with malware? On the majority of occasions, cybercriminals will use it as a launch platform for numerous malicious activities, such as spamming, launching DDoS attacks, harvesting for fresh emails, and account logins. But most interestingly, thanks to the support offered in multiple malware loaders, they will convert the malware-infected hosts into anonymization proxies used by cybercriminals to cover their Web activities.
In this post, I’ll profile a newly launched service, offering thousands of malware-infected hosts as Socks4 and Socks5 servers for anonymizing a cybercriminal’s Web activities.
An Evolution of Android Malware “When stealing data isn’t enough meet…GoManag …“ (Part 2)
In our continued series of how Android malware authors continue adding functionality to their work we take a look at GoManag. First seen last year, targeting Chinese speakers, GoManag is a Trojan that installs as a service so it can run in the background, collects device information and downloads payloads. Its odd name comes from part of a URL it attempts to contact to.
Malicious GoManag app running in the background as the name “Google Search (Enhanced)”
BlackHole exploit kits gets updated with new features
According to independent sources, the author of the most popular web malware exploitation kit currently dominating the threat landscape, has recently issued yet another update to the latest version of the kit v1.2.2.
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A peek inside the Elite Malware Loader
Just like today’s modern economy, in the cybercrime ecosystem supply, too, meets demand on a regular basis.
With malware coding for hire propositions increasing thanks to the expanding pool of talented programmers looking for ways to enter the cybercrime ecosystem, it shouldn’t be surprising that cybercriminals are constantly releasing new malware loaders, cryptors, remote access trojans, or issuing updates to web malware exploitation kits on a periodic basis, using the outsourcing market model.
Continuing the “Peek inside…” series, in this post I’ll profile the Elite Malware Loader. In the wild since 2009, the malware loader is still under active development according to a recently spotted advertisement within the cybercrime ecosystem.
How cybercriminals monetize malware-infected hosts
The vibrant cybercrime underground ecosystem offers countless ways to monetize the malware-infected hosts at the disposal of the malicious attacker.
From converting them to anonymization proxies assisting cybercriminals in covering their Web activities, to launching DDoS attacks, and using them to disseminate spam and more malicious threats, cybercriminals have a vast arsenal of monetization tactics in their arsenal.
In this post we’ll profile a recently advertised service offering thousands of Facebook “Likes”, Twitter followers, and YouTube views, all for the modest price of a couple of hundred rubles, entirely relying on malware-infected hosts for supporting their infrastructure.
Spamvertised ‘Termination of your CPA license’ campaign serving client-side exploits
Cybercriminals are currently spamvertising ‘Termination of your CPA license‘ emails, enticing users into clicking on a malicious link supposedly redirecting to the complaint.pdf file.
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A peek inside the Ann Malware Loader
The ever-adapting cybercrime ecosystem is constantly producing new underground releases in the form of malware loaders, remote access trojans (RATs), malware cryptors, Web, IRC and P2P based command and control interfaces, all with the clear objective to undermine current security solutions.
Continuing the “A peek inside…” series, in this post I will profile a malware loader recently advertised within the cybercrime ecosystem , namely, the Ann Malware Loader.
Researchers intercept malvertising campaign using Yahoo’s ad network
Security researchers from StopMalvertising.com have intercepted a malvertising campaign using Yahoo’s ad network, that ultimately leads to a malicious payload in the form of fake security software known as scareware.
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