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If you are dealing in cryptocurrency Bitcoin and have Microsoft's Security Essentials (MSE) installed on your system, then you could be infected by a virus called " DOS/STONED " from the Bitcoin BlockChain. With a number of high-profile cases of fraud, theft, and technical incompetence against the bitcoins, it seems like cyber criminals are looking to scam unsuspecting customers. Blockchain is Bitcoin's most popular bitcoin wallet and block explorer. It is a central part of the Bitcoin system that includes a log file in which all bitcoin transactions are recorded. It stores the wallet data in encrypted form and runs on privately owned dedicated hardware. In an discussion on the Microsoft discussion boards, a user go by the name ' edc678 ' claimed that  Microsoft's Security Essentials  is showing alerts of the signature of the STONED virus in the Bitcoin BlockChain, which could only allow an attacker to write small chunk of text to accomp...

Do you know, A Computer viruses could go Airborne over WiFi networks? Security researchers at the University of Liverpool  in Britain have demonstrated a WiFi virus that can spread between computer networks just like the ' common cold ' spreads between Humans. They have created a proof-of-concept which can infect the entire wireless network instead of a single computer at a time,  that replaces the firmware of the vulnerable Access Point (AP) with a virus-loaded version, and then propagates itself to the next victim on the WiFi network . The  WiFi  based virus named as ' Chameleon ', that can self-propagate over WiFi networks from access point to access point,  but  doesn't affect the working of the Wireless Access Point. This Virus is able to identify WiFi access points that are not protected by encryption and passwords, according to the research paper . It can badly hit less-protected open access WiFi networks available in coffee...

The latest Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 Cloud Threat Report found that sensitive data is found in 66% of cloud storage buckets. This data is vulnerable to ransomware attacks. The SANS Institute recently reported that these attacks can be performed by abusing the cloud provider's storage security controls and default settings. "In just the past few months, I have witnessed two different methods for executing a ransomware attack using nothing but legitimate cloud security features," warns Brandon Evans, security consultant and SANS Certified Instructor. Halcyon disclosed an attack campaign that leveraged one of Amazon S3's native encryption mechanisms, SSE-C, to encrypt each of the target buckets. A few months prior, security consultant Chris Farris demonstrated how attackers could perform a similar attack using a different AWS security feature, KMS keys with external key material, using simple scripts generated by ChatGPT. "Clearly, this topic is top-of-mind for both threat actors and ...

Zeus , a financially aimed Banking Trojan that comes in many different forms and flavors, is capable to steal users' online-banking credentials once installed. This time, an infamous  Zeus Trojan has turned out to be a more sophisticated piece of malware that uses web-crawling action . Instead of going after Banking credentials and performing malicious keystroke logging, a new variant of Zeus Trojan focuses on Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for the purpose of obtaining access to proprietary data or code. The SaaS Security firm vendor Adallom , detected a targeted malware attack campaign against a Salesforce.com customer, which began as an attack on an employee's home computer. Adallom found that the new variant had web crawling capabilities that were used to grab sensitive business data from that customer's CRM instance. The Security firm noticed the attack when they saw about 2GB of data been downloaded to the victim's computer in less than 10...

Valentine's Day   - a day of hearts, Chocolates, Flowers and Celebrations when people express their emotions to their loved ones and most of us send E-cards, purchase special gifts with the help of various Online Shop Sites and many other tantrums making them feel special. While you are busy in Googling ideal gifts for your loved ones, the Cyber thieves are also busy in taking advantage of such events by spreading various malware , phishing campaigns and fraud schemes as these days come out to be a goldmine for the cyber criminals. Online Shopping Scams are popular among Cyber criminals as it is the easiest way for hackers to steal money in easy and untraceable ways. Security Researchers at Anti virus firm - Trend Micro discovered various Valentine's Day threats which are common at such occasion i.e. A flower-delivery service and it appears to be a normal promotional e-mail, but the links actually lead to various survey scams. The Malware threats also arr...

The year begins with the number of new variants of malware that were discovered by various security researchers. The new variants are more complex, sophisticated and mostly undetectable. Two years back in 2012, the FBI warned us about the ' GameOver ' banking Trojan, a variant of Zeus financial malware that spreads via phishing emails. GameOver makes fraudulent transactions from your bank once installed in your system with the capability to conduct Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack using a botnet, which involves multiple computers flooding the financial institution's server with traffic in an effort to deny legitimate users access to the site. But that wasn't the end; a new variant of the same family of banking Trojan has been discovered by researchers that are being delivered by cyber criminals to users' machines, making it easier for the banking malware to evade detection and steal victim's banking credentials. Malcovery's Gary Warner explains ...

Process Explorer , a part of the Microsoft's Sysinternals suite of applications is an alternate task manager for Windows, which offers far more features than 'on-board'. Microsoft's Windows Sysinternal Suite has released the latest version of Process Explorer v16.0  that has an awesome feature which allows a user to scan any running program files with a web-based multi-antivirus scanner VirusTotal . Process Explorer sends the hashes of images and files shown in the process and DLL views to VirusTotal,  and if they have been previously scanned, it reports how many antivirus engines identified them as possibly malicious. This new version of 'Process Explorer' is better than ever before, and is quite fast that allows you to find unwanted malware  immediately and respective hyper-linked result takes you to VirusTotal.com's  detailed report page and there you can even submit more files for scanning. Whenever your system starts doing sluggish behavior...

When you're online, you expose your vulnerability to malicious virus that have been growing in virulence and ferocity over the last few years.  Among home PC users, you may think that you protected from malicious software by Installing an effective, trusted antivirus solution, but most if the Antivirus solutions still it merely finds and removes any known threats. But what if someday you turn on your system and you will find a pop up window with a warning that says " Your system is Locked and Important drives are encrypted and there is no way out unless you will not Pay fine ". This is what Ransomware malware does to your system. Ransomware is the most serious emerging threat in the virtual world of computing devices. Ransomware is a kind of malware which is designed to Block access to the computing system or can lock your system until an amount of money is paid through Internet banking. Ransomware is usually installed when you open a malicious atta...

If you're a daily computer user, you're likely aware of all the threats you face every day online in the form of viruses and malware . CryptoLocker , a new ransomware malware, began making the rounds several months ago. This ransomware is particularly nasty because infected users are in danger of losing their personal files forever. Ransomware is designed to extort money from computer users by holding computer files hostage until the computer user pays a ransom fee to get them back. The Cryptolocker hijacker sniffs out your personal files and wraps them with strong encryption before it demands money. Cryptolocker is spread through malicious hyperlinks shared via social media and spam emails, like fake UPS tracking notification emails. The original demanded payments of $100 to decrypt files, but the new and improved version demanding $300 from victims. Apparently, the encryption is created using a unique RSA-2048 public key. The decryption key is located o...

Famous poker player 'Masaaki Kagawa' who won about $1.5 million in poker tournaments has been arrested by Japanese authorities for allegedly distributing Android malware. According to Symantec , He is just one of nine men arrested for distributing spam that included emails with links to Android malware ' Android.Enesoluty ', used to collect contact details stored on the owner's device. Security researchers discovered Android.Enesoluty first time in September 2012, it steals information and sends it to computers run by hackers. The operation began around September, 2012 and ended in April, 2013 when authorities raided the company office. Around 150 domains were registered to host the malicious apps and the group was able to collect approximately 37 million email addresses from around 810,000 Android devices. The company earned over 3.9 million US dollars by running a fake online dating service called Sakura site. " His passion for taking chances ...

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel Magazine, American whistleblower Edward Snowden has Confirmed that Stuxnet Malware was developed by NSA and Israel Together. Stuxnet made international headlines in 2010 for specifically target a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. Stuxnet was designed to make the centrifuges spin out of control and cause physical damage to the plant in Natanz. Stuxnet temporarily disabled 1,000 centrifuges that the Iranians were using to enrich uranium. Asked whether the NSA collaborates with Israel, Snowden said: " Yes, all the time. The NSA has a large section for that, called the FAD - Foreign Affairs Directorate. "  " The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together, " Snowden said when asked if the NSA had any involvement in the Stuxnet program. Last year an even more complex computer virus called Flame was discovered and while initially it was not linked to Stuxnet, further investigation by Kaspersky Labs identified a...

In the constant battle between illegal file sharers (Pirates) and the entertainment industry (Hollywood) supplying the protected digital materials, the pirates have been staying one step ahead, although the industry may soon have a powerful new weapon in their arsenal. A new report released by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property suggests the use of malware to fight piracy. In a report, the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property proposed many ways piracy can be combated, including infecting alleged violators' computers with malware that can wreck havoc, including and up to destroying the user's computer. It would also give the entertainment industry the advantage of tracking those who commit IP theft on-line no matter their location. Though it sounds reasonable on the surface, it is really a bad idea due to the challenge of correctly identifying a cyber attacker, as well as the unavoidable risk of collateral damage. If you want to read ...

The Algerian hacker linked with the SpyEye computer virus, designed to steal financial and personal information was extradited by Thailand to the United States to face charges that he hijacked customer accounts at more than 200 banks and financial institutions and have been used to steal more than $100 million in the last five years. A SpyEye allowed cybercriminals to alter the display of Web pages in the victims' browsers as a way to trick them into turning over personal financial information. The virus only impacts PCs and not Macintosh operating systems. A report issued last year by security firms McAfee said that about a dozen cybercrime groups have been using variants of Zeus and SpyEye, which automate the process of transferring money from bank accounts. The stolen funds are transferred to prepaid debit cards or into accounts controlled by money mules, allowing the mules to withdraw the money and wire it to the attackers. Hamza Bendelladj ,...

A new sophisticated and stealthy Apache backdoor meant to drive traffic to malicious websites serving Blackhole exploit kit widely has been detected by  Sucuri recently. Researchers claimed that this backdoor affecting hundreds of web servers right now. Dubbed Linux/Cdorked.A , one of the most sophisticated Apache backdoors we have seen so far. The backdoor leaves no traces of compromised hosts on the hard drive other than its modified httpd binary, thereby complicating forensics analysis. All of the information related to the backdoor is stored in shared memory.  The configuration is pushed by the attacker through obfuscated HTTP requests that aren't logged in normal Apache logs. The HTTP server is equipped with a reverse connect backdoor that can be triggered via a special HTTP GET request. This means that no command and control information is stored anywhere on the system. ESET researchers  analyzed the binary and ...

Computer networks at major South Korean banks and top TV broadcasters crashed simultaneously Wednesday, during a Massive cyber attack. South Korean police investigating reports from several major broadcasters and banks. least three broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN and the Shinhan and Nonghyu banks reported that their computer networks had been crached. The state-run Korea Information Security Agency said that Screens went blank at 2 p.m. and more than seven hours later some systems were still down.  The take down was apparently not from a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, but a virus that has apparently infected machines in these organizations and delivered its payload simultaneously. An official at the Korea Communications Commission said investigators speculate that malicious code was spread from company servers that send automatic updates of security software and virus patches. The Associated Press says: " The latest network para...

Researchers are already warning that malware authors developing more sophisticated attack techniques for mobile devices, using encryption and randomization or hiding malicious code in image files. As analyzed by Symantec a malicious Infrared X-Ray  Android application, attempting to lure Android device owners to download an app that supposedly allows the camera on the device to see through clothes. This malware app is spreading quickly widely in Japan by sending the spam messages via SMS to phone numbers stored in the device's Contacts, so that the recipients of the spam to be tricked easier because the invitation to download the app is coming from someone they know rather than from an unknown sender. The app is designed to steals all details in the device's contact list and are uploaded to a predetermined server. Symantec  confirmed that there are several variants of this app exist, ". .the latest variants have added an interesting payload: rather...

Microsoft teamed up with Symantec to take down a nasty malware affecting thousands upon thousands of PCs. Bamital botnet  hijacked people's search experiences and redirected victims to potentially dangerous sites that could leave them vulnerable to other online threats and steal their personal information. Experts from the organizations obtained a court order and shut down servers at a data center in New Jersey and convinced operators in Virginia to shut down a server they control in the Netherlands on Wednesday. The Bamital botnet threatened the US$12.7 billion online advertising industry by generating fraudulent clicks on Internet ads. Microsoft's research shows that Bamital hijacked more than 8 million computers over the past two years. Microsoft says that the botnet affected many major search engines and browsers including Bing, Yahoo, and Google offerings. Bamital's organizers also had the ability to take control of infected PCs, installing other types o...

The capillary diffusion of mobile devices, the lack of security systems on these platforms and low level of awareness on principal cyber threats made them a privileged target for cybercrime. We have assisted in the recent year to an explosion of malware designed to hit principal mobile OSs, in a recent report Sophos security firm revealed that in Australia and the U.S. Android threat exposure rates exceeding those of PCs showing the urgency to implement proper countermeasures. The situation appears really critical that why I asked to the expert of Group-IB Forensics Lab to show me how these agents work with a really case study. Several month ago Group-IB Forensics Lab detected mobile-banking malware through Google Play by Sberbank request (Russian leading national bank).  The File associated to the malware was named sber.apk , it was an Android Package having size of 225,905 bytes and digest md5: F27D43DFEEDFFAC2EC7E4A069B3C9516 . Analyzing the functionality of th...