<![CDATA[[SecurityRatty] tag: malware]]> http://securityratty.com/tag/malware Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:05:01 +0000 iRatty Engine http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Storm Botnet Celebrates The Independence Day With New Wave Of Malware Spam]]> http://securityratty.com/article/21d109b062a0ef9971503608914e93d8 http://securityratty.com/article/21d109b062a0ef9971503608914e93d8 Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:39:45 +0000 storm botnet independence day malware spam wave spam wave directs exe file encourages link time conscious Storm Botnet Celebrates The Independence Day With New Wave Of Malware Spam <![CDATA[Microsoft trumpets security additons in upcoming IE8]]> http://securityratty.com/article/158b9419cb474bbc997555c1b306b0c0 http://securityratty.com/article/158b9419cb474bbc997555c1b306b0c0

]]> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:00:00 +0000 match tools similar microsoft wednesday security features anti-malware protection internet explorer rivals attacks cross-site filter Microsoft trumpets security additons in upcoming IE8 <![CDATA[Scareware runs amok on PlayStation site]]> http://securityratty.com/article/6b01d9820d267b9d897eeba33a3fb5e7 http://securityratty.com/article/6b01d9820d267b9d897eeba33a3fb5e7 Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:28:35 +0000 site gamers hit hackers Scareware runs amok on PlayStation site <![CDATA[Expect iPhone, Fourth of July scams, security firm says]]> http://securityratty.com/article/9e827df806e25f04f4cf1ac4c04a8c85 http://securityratty.com/article/9e827df806e25f04f4cf1ac4c04a8c85

]]> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:00:00 +0000 iphone july holiday fourth malware spam lead friday apple week launch Expect iPhone, Fourth of July scams, security firm says <![CDATA[Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmails CAPTCHA Broken]]> http://securityratty.com/article/2badfb281b757d70e647ebcbc4fc2b3f http://securityratty.com/article/2badfb281b757d70e647ebcbc4fc2b3f It's one thing to start efficiently registering thousands of email accounts at reputable email providers by automatically breaking their CAPTCHA authentication, and entirely another to build a business model on the top of it next to the opportunity to abuse if for your own malicious purposes. Which is exactly what we have here, an underground service that's selling registered accounts at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and the most popular Russian email providers in the thousands. Once the inventory of registered accounts drops due to someone's purchase, it continues registering one to two email accounts per second.

Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail’s CAPTCHA broken by spammers :

"Breaking Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail’s CAPTCHAs, has been an urban legend for over two years now, with do-it-yourself CAPTCHA breaking services, and proprietary underground tools assisting spammers, phishers and malware authors into registering hundreds of thousands of bogus accounts for spamming and fraudulent purposes. This post intends to make this official, by covering an underground service offering thousands of already registered Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail accounts for sale, with new ones registered every second clearly indicating the success rate of their CAPTCHA breaking capabilities at these services."

Text based CAPTCHA is so broken, that if major web sites whose services are getting abused don't at least try to slow down the efficient approach of breaking it, we are going to see an entire spamming infrastructure build on the foundation of legitimate email service providers.

Related posts:
Vladuz's Ebay CAPTCHA Populator
Spammers and Phishers Breaking CAPTCHAs
DIY CAPTCHA Breaking Service
Which CAPTCHA Do You Want to Decode Today?
]]> Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:36:21 +0000 captcha hotmails captcha captcha authentication bogus accounts accounts text based captcha accounts drops due do-it-yourself captcha yahoo Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmails CAPTCHA Broken <![CDATA[Great re-visit on a little known tip about blocking Malware]]> http://securityratty.com/article/919a6207560411988d92cd082ddcc8fe http://securityratty.com/article/919a6207560411988d92cd082ddcc8fe Ran across this site and found this great article on a little known tip for blocking Malware by editing your hosts file.
I like this site!
clipped from pctechbytestoday.com


Modify Your Hosts File to Block Malware

By now, most of us know what spyware is and what it can do to your computer. If your PC is connected to the Internet, chances are you have some form of spyware. It attaches to your PC as you casually roam websites or download files. But you can be proactive and block some of the known malware websites by altering your hosts file in Windows.
  blog it
]]> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:53:53 +0000 malware hosts file block malware block malware websites spyware tip roam websites site Great re-visit on a little known tip about blocking Malware <![CDATA[Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8]]> http://securityratty.com/article/f6e6cc4dd22bae87448ca5890a8bd59f http://securityratty.com/article/f6e6cc4dd22bae87448ca5890a8bd59f

]]> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:00:00 +0000 built-in security features thwart malware internet explorer microsoft plans attacks cross-site month browser beta Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8 <![CDATA[The Governments Top Hackers?]]> http://securityratty.com/article/a278ca43d573699cd7a0146f62317f26 http://securityratty.com/article/a278ca43d573699cd7a0146f62317f26 Popular Mechanics recently published an article about the NSA Red Team, which caught my interest, having been a part of that organization for a short stint back in early 2000. The article does a decent job of describing the Red Team’s charter, which is essentially to attack DOD targets in an attempt to simulate real adversaries, not unlike a consultant running a pen test against a corporation. The rules of engagement are similar to most pen tests: don’t DoS the target, don’t install malware, generally be non-destructive.

Disappointingly, the author sprinkles the usual super-secret uber-hacker spin throughout the article to make the Red Team seem mysterious and exclusive, with untouchable talent. It’s a little misleading. For starters, there’s the predictable question about success rates:

I’d heard from one of the Department of Defense clients who had previously worked with the NSA red team that OWNSAVAOG and his team had a success rate of close to 100 percent. “We don’t keep statistics on that,” OWNSAVAOG insisted when I pressed him on an internal measuring stick.

This is one of those statements that is difficult for the average reader to interpret. It’s intended to make the team sound like a crack squad of hackers, but in reality it’s the same statistic that every security consultancy cites during sales calls. The truth is, there’s a lot of wiggle room on what is considered “getting in” to the target. For example, some would say that brute forcing an FTP server and downloading some FOUO (For Official Use Only) documents constitutes penetrating the target. Others would disagree.

How about personnel? I thought this was an englightening and accurate statement from the unnamed NSA source:

And like any good geek at a desk talking to a guy with a really cool job, I wondered just where the NSA finds the members of its superhacker squad. “The bulk is military personnel, civilian government employees and a small cadre of contractors,” OWNSAVAOG says. The military guys mainly conduct the ops (the actual breaking and entering stuff), while the civilians and contractors mainly write code to support their endeavors. For those of you looking for a gig in the ultrasecret world of red teaming, this top hacker says the ideal profile is someone with “technical skills, an adversarial mind-set, perseverance and imagination.”

He basically admits that the team consists mostly of people who “run the tools” and only a handful that actually write the tools or do anything cutting-edge. It shouldn’t be that surprising; just as in any large consulting organization, you have some people who run scanners/tools and aren’t expected to be terribly analytical. While the Red Team almost certainly has some superstars, on the whole it is similar in both skillset and composition to a typical consultancy or enterprise security team.

In terms of attracting and retaining top talent, the Red Team faces the same challenges as the rest of the information security industry, with the built-in disadvantage of the government pay scale. If that wasn’t bad enough, they also have to compete with themselves (i.e. the rest of the NSA) for already scarce resources. Given these challenges, how could one realistically expect the Red Team to be as advanced as the article portrays?

Finally, let’s dispel the “super-secret” notion — unless things have changed significantly, the majority of Red Team operations are unclassified. Granted, detailed information is guarded, but you can find reports summarizing past operations if you dig around a bit. One would expect that an operation intended to be truly secretive would never make its way into Google search results.

I want to conclude by saying that this post is not intended to cast the Red Team itself in a negative light. I enjoyed my time there and had the opportunity to work with some smart people. The Red Team’s goals are worthy and noble; clearly, state-sponsored cyberterrorism is a growing concern and as a country we should be as prepared as possible. But realize that we have a long way to go.

]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:40:47 +0000 team nsa red team red team team sound red team operations nsa red red teams charter enterprise security team The Governments Top Hackers? <![CDATA[Decrypting and Restoring GPcode Encrypted Files]]> http://securityratty.com/article/e39ad499bbe55c20aca17c7ba23989b4 http://securityratty.com/article/e39ad499bbe55c20aca17c7ba23989b4
The futile attempt to directly attack the encryption algorithm used by the GPcode ransomware, is prompting Kaspersky Labs to invest in a more pragmatic solutions to the problem, with a new version of the StopGpcode tool released last week. More info :

"It turns out that if a user has files that are encrypted by Gpcode and versions of those same files that are unencrypted, then the pairs of files (the encrypted and corresponding unencrypted file) can be used to restore other files on the victim machine. This is the method that the StopGpcode2 tool uses.

Where can these unencrypted files be found? They may be the result of using PhotoRec. Moreover, these files may be found in a backup storage or on removable media (e.g., the original files of photographs copied to the hard disk of a computer that has been attacked by Gpcode may still be on a camera’s memory card). Unencrypted files may also have been saved somewhere on a network resource (e.g., films or video clips on a public server) that the Gpcode virus has not reached."

As the customer support desk behind GPcode pointed out in an interview, the malware is prone to evolve, and the simplistic file deletion process will be replaced by secure file deletion in order to render all data recovery tols useless, unless of course backups of the affected data are available. They often aren't, and depending on the importance of the files encrypted, the successful ransom is all a matter of the momentum.

"A person, presumably the author of Gpcode, contacted at one of the e-mail addresses left behind by the program stated that future development efforts will likely increase the key size to 4,096 bits, "if AV companies or other (people) crack the current key, but (that's) impossible. The self-proclaimed author, who used the name "Daniel Robertson," also said that other standard techniques to defeat antivirus will be added, including polymorphic encryption, anti-heuristic features and the ability to self propagate, turning the program into a computer virus. It well pays back itself," he said"

There are even more pragmatic approaches to dealing with this problem, next to backups undermining their business model. Try following the virtual money for instance.
]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:26:39 +0000 files gpcode original files gpcode virus gpcode ransomware file secure file deletion computer virus key Decrypting and Restoring GPcode Encrypted Files <![CDATA[Summarizing June's Threatscape]]> http://securityratty.com/article/520325188c71fdacd3f86834feb1cdc5 http://securityratty.com/article/520325188c71fdacd3f86834feb1cdc5 June's threatscape that I'll summarize in this post based on all the research conducted during the month, was a very vibrant one. With the return of GPcode, a remotely exploitable flaw in the Zeus crimeware kit allowing both, researchers and malicious parties to assess the severity of a particular banker malware campaign, the increasing use of malicious doorways next to ICANN and IANA's DNS hijacking, all speak for themselves and how diverse the threats and, of course, the abilities to maintain a decent situatiational awareness about what's going on have become.
01.  U.K's Crime Reduction Portal Hosting Phishing Pages - nothing new here since vulnerable sites are to be "remotely file included" and SQL injected to locally host anything on behalf of a malicious party. Risk and responsibility forwarding is one thing, but having a crime reduction portal hosting phishing pages is entirely another. The phishing pages was shut down in less than 12 hours upon notification
02. Price Discrimination in the Market for Stolen Credit Cards - Tracking down "yet another stolen credit cards for sale" service in the wild, the price discremination that they applied greatly reflects the current lack of transpararency for a potential buyer of stolen credit cards, and how higher profit margins are driving the entire business model. With script kiddies running their own botnets and undermining the sophisticated botnet master's high profit margin business model by undercutting their prices, stolen credit cards are not what they used to be - an exclussive good. Nowadays, they are a commodity good and often a bargain
03. Blackhat SEO Redirects to Malware and Rogue Software - Sampling an active blackhat SEO campaign out of the hundreds of thousands currently active online, releaved a large portfolio of domains serving Zlob variants by pitching them as fake codecs that the end user should download if they are to view the non existent adult content at the sites. Where's the OSINT mean? It's in the fact that the codecs and the fake security software phone back to UkrTeleGroup Ltd's network
04. Using Market Forces to Disrupt Botnets - With the current oversupply of malware infected hosts, and botnet masters embracing the services model for anything malicious, in this post I discussed the radical security approach of puchasing already infected malware hosts on a per country basis, disinfecting them and forcing them to update all the software on the infected PCs. Of course, on an opt-in basis. The possibility to directly provide incentives for botnet hunters to shut down whatever they come across to on a daily basis, and that's a lot of botnets, is also there
05. Who's Behind the GPcode Ransomware? - The title speaks for itself, the research with enough actionable intelligence gathered in the shortest timeframe possible is already proving accurate and highly valuable. How come? Stay tuned for more developments
06. ImageShack Typosquatted to Serve Malware - In a rare instance of a creative attack combining typosquatting in order to impersonate ImageShack and serve malware by redirecting users to an image file that is actually forwarding to the binary, I was recently tipped by the folks at TrendMicro who are also following this that the site is up and running again. Not for long
07. Fake YouTube Site Serving Flash Exploits - Next to using the usual set of exploits courtesy of a commodity web malware exploitation kit, this campaign was also using flash exploits. Even more interesting is the fact that the password stealer obtained was attempting to phone back to a misconfigured malware command and control interface, basically allowing you to assess the campaign from the eyes of the "campaigner"
08. Monetizing Web Site Defacements - Web site defacements are getting monetized just like SQL injections are in order to locally host a blackhat search engine optimization campaign on a vulnerable site with a high page rank. In this post I've assessed such monetization courtesy of a web site defacer at The Africa Middle Market Fund
09. Malicious Doorways Redirecting to Malware - Yet another large domains portfolio exposed though a malicious doorway redirecting to fake porn and video sites serving Zlob variants, tracking down the initial spamming of the malicious doorways across multiple vulnerable forums and guestbooks
10. The Zeus Crimeware Kit Vulnerable to Remotely Exploitable Flaw - When cyber criminals get advised to patch their vulnerable versons of the Zeus Crimeware Kit, you know there's a monoculture in the crimeware market. This flaw released publicly in May, 2008, not just allows others to hijack someone's ebanking botnet, but also, vendors and researchers to better assess a vulnerable Zeus command and control location
11. Fake Celebrity Video Sites Serving Malware - When templates for fake video and adult sites are just as available as they are now, anyone can take advantage of this cheap social engineering track that seems to work just fine. Compared to relying on blackhat search optimization to acquire traffic, some of the campaigns were SQL injected at vulnerable sites in order to drive traffic to them, next to several other tactics which when combined can result in a lot of people unknowingly visiting the sites
12. Phishing Campaign Spreading Across Facebook - An internal phishing campaign was circulating across Facebook, which got taken care of thanks to coordinated efforts with Facebook's security folks. There's also an indicating tha they are currently typosquatting other social networking sites like Hi5 for instance
13. Underground Multitasking in Action - As a firm believed in taking a random sample for a particular threat segment, this was once of these cases confirming the confidence I've built into anticipating upcoming tactics and strategies to be used
14. An Update to Photobucket's DNS Hijacking - Despite that Photobucket didn't oficially acknowledge the DNS hijacking, the hosting provider the NetDevilz hacking team used issued a statement. Ironically, the Turkish hacking group used the same provider weeks later to redirect ICANN and IANA's domains to Atspace.com
15. Fake Porn Sites Serving Malware - Among the largest domains portfolio of malware serving porn sites I've exposed in a while, all of them naturally remain active since they are hosted on a partition of RBN's diverse network. Visualizing a malicious doorway or the entire ecosystem provides a better understanding at how structured the ecosystems are
16. Backdoording Cyber Jihadist Ebooks for Surveillance Purposes - Despite that in this case we have a cyber jihadist backdoording his own released books, the international intelligence community next to law enforcement are known to have expressed interest in backdooring suspect's PCs, so why not SQL inject the cyber jihadist forums themselves?
17. Right Wing Israeli Hackers Deface Hamas's Site - When you read that Hamas's site is hacked, you ask yourself the following, do they even have a web site that's up the running? The answer to which would be the fact that even Hezbollah has been maintaining an Internet infrastructure since 1998
18. ICANN and IANA's Domain Names Hijacked by the NetDevilz Hacking Group - A fact is a fact, no comment here, go through all the technical details of the hijacking, including some actionable intelligence on who's behind the hijacking
19. The Malicious ISPs You Rarely See in Any Report - Who's tolerating malicious activities on their network, and how is the RBN related to all this? Well, when combined, the tiny parts of these ISPs represent a tiny part of the Russian Business Network itself
]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:05:01 +0000 site fake youtube site web site defacements malware malware hosts web site defacer sites vulnerable sites malicious Summarizing June's Threatscape