Malware

eco: 100K PCs Cleaned Through Anti-Botnet Center

eco, the German ISP association, mentions on its website today that the 100,000^th PC was cleaned from infection through its PC cleaning program. Since 15 September, German account holders could visit the website to download tools to clean up computers from digital infections. Botfrei ("botfree", translation WdN) is a cooperation between eco and the German government. First figures seem to prove that this is a successful public-private partnership, worth looking into for other countries as a best practice. more

What Must We Trust?

My Twitter feed has exploded with the release of the Kaspersky report on the "Equation Group", an entity behind a very advanced family of malware. (Naturally, everyone is blaming the NSA. I don't know who wrote that code, so I'll just say it was beings from the Andromeda galaxy.) The Equation Group has used a variety of advanced techniques, including injecting malware into disk drive firmware, planting attack code on "photo" CDs sent to conference attendees, encrypting payloads... more

How Frequently Do Botnets Reuse IP Addresses?

I wonder how much botnets reuse IP addresses. Do they infect a system and spam, get blocked, discard the IP and move onto the next (new) one? This means that they have a nearly unlimited supply of IP addresses. Or do they infect a system and spam, get blocked, and then let it go dormant only to awaken it some time later? I decided to take a look. more

Restricting Anti-Virus Won’t Work

In a blog post, Stewart Baker proposed restricting access to sophisticated anti-virus software as a way to limit the development of sophisticated malware. It won't work, for many different and independent reasons. To understand why, though, it's necessary to understand how AV programs work. The most important technology used today is the "signature" - a set of patterns of bytes - of each virus. Every commercial AV program on the market operates on a subscription model... more

Cyber Security: A Duty to Care?

Yesterday, in my post on three new threats in one day, I posed the question whether it was necessary to develop regulations that would set a minimum standard on cyber security for devices that connect to the Internet. I'm having second thoughts here, which I'll explain in this post, but also try to look at a way forward and ask you to engage. more

The Growing Security Concerns… Don’t Have Nightmares

Anyone concerned about the security of their computers and the data held on them might sleep a little uneasily tonight. Over the past few weeks we've heard reports of serious vulnerabilities in wireless networking and chip and pin readers, and seen how web browsers could fall victim to 'clickjacking' and trick us into inadvertently visiting fake websites. The longstanding fear that malicious software might start infecting our mobile phones was given a boost... And now a group of researchers have shown that you can read what is typed on a keyboard from twenty metres away... more

Remembering the Good Times

The most effective early email-borne viruses didn't need botnets. They didn't change your computer settings, or steal your login credentials. And they somehow convinced regular users to help them spread. The first warnings about the Good Times virus began to appear in November of 1994, and by December the warnings were seen all over as people did what the warning said, and forwarded it to all their friends. There was another outbreak the following March... more

NATO Announces 58 Million Euro Investment in Cyber Defence

The NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) has announced the award of a contract for upgrading the NATO cyber defence capabilities. The award to private industrial companies will enable the already operating NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC) to achieve full operational capability by the end of 2012. At approximately 58 million Euro, it represents NATO's largest investment to date in cyber defence. more

Privacy Rules to Change in the EU, But What If ...?

In a presentation EU Commissioner Viviane Reding gave a preview of the new Privacy regulation her DG is preparing. As she states, privacy rules need to be brought up to date and harmonized. With all 27 member states having the same rules and tools to enforce, a company only will deal with one privacy commissioner... So, what if we, for the sake of this blog, take this initiative towards spam and cyber crime. What would this do to spam enforcement? more

Coders, Crackers and Bots, Oh My!

There are more than just blue, black and white hat hackers. There are a few more types of folks out there that don't fit into the above categories. This article is taken from Stratfor with some commentary by myself... Many of the hackers described in my previous post are also coders, or "writers," who create viruses, worms, Trojans, bot protocols and other destructive "malware" tools used by hackers... more

Are Phishing and Malware Separate Threats?

Phishing is when bad guys try to impersonate a trusted organization, so they can steal your credentials. Typically they'll send you a fake e-mail that appears to be from a bank, with a link to a fake website that also looks like the bank. Malware offers another more insidious way to steal your credentials, by running unwanted code on your computer... I like VeriSign's characterization of this kind of malware as an insecure endpoint, the PC which is the endpoint of the conversation with the bank isn't actually under the control of the person who's using it. more

WikiLeaks and Stuxnet - Smart Grid Wakeup Calls

The past couple of weeks have been pretty seminal for anyone concerned about the state of Internet security and the bigger picture as to how much we could - do - and should - trust the Web. These two strange words - WikiLeaks and Stuxnet - have suddenly entered our lexicon and there is a lot to be concerned about in the world of smart grid. more

Report On National Online Cybercrime and Online Threats Reporting Centres

Today I released a report on 'National cyber crime and online threats reporting centres. A study into national and international cooperation'. Mitigating online threats and the subsequent enforcing of violations of laws often involves many different organisations and countries. Many countries are presently engaged in erecting national centres aimed at reporting cyber crime, spam or botnet mitigation. more

Security and Reliability: A Closer Look at Penetration Testing

As noted in my first article of this series (see part one, two and three), security and reliability encompass holistic network assessments, vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. This month I'd like to go deeper into penetration testing; however, first, let's go back for a quick refresh before getting started. more

Spam from Mobile Networks? Who Woulda Thought…

Mobile networks aren't usually thought of as sources of spam, but a quick look at some of the resources that track spam reveals they actually are. This is counter intuitive at first glance because when most people think of mobile they think of smartphones, and those aren't known to be sources of spam (at least not yet). What's really going on is PCs connected to mobile networks with air cards, or tethered with a smartphone where it's permissible, are the culprits more