Iran’s Computer Emergency Response Team (IR-CERT) issued a warning on Sunday about a newly discovered malicious program that is erasing hard drives on infected systems in that country – just the latest data-destroying malware to appear there. IR-CERT said that an investigation by its Maher center found that the malware “wipes files on different drives in various predefined times,” including disk partitions and user profiles. However, the malware isn’t widespread and doesn’t appear linked to “other sophisticated targeted attacks,” the alert said – in a possible reference to the Stuxnet and Flame malware, both of which targeted Iranian critical infrastructure. Subsequent analysis by independent security firms confirmed most of the details of the IR-CERT warning. Writing on Monday, Jamie Blasco of the firm Alien Vault said the malware was “just another wiping malware” and “very simple,” and could have been delivered in a variety of ways – from USB drive […]
Technologies
Tantalizing Clues in Dexter Malware Lead to Mystery Man…and Zeus
The Dexter malware is getting some media attention this week – and not just because the malware shares its name with Showtime’s popular drama about a serial killer by the same name. (Not that those of us tasked to write catchy headlines don’t love stuff like that – ’cause we do.) No, the Dexter virus caught the attention of malware analysts because it infects point of sale (POS) systems like electronic cash registers, kiosks and automatic teller machines (ATMs), rather than run of the mill laptops and desktops. It has also generated some interest because it uses a form of memory dump parsing to steal sensitive data from infected POS terminals, and because its POS malware that is part of a botnet – communicating back to a command and control system and receiving commands – that’s quite unusual and, while its kind of insider baseball for malware geeks, it makes […]
FBI Issued Alert over July Attack on HVAC System
The FBI issued an alert to businesses in July after unknown attackers breached a computer used to control the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system of a New Jersey company, accessing a graphical user interface for the system, including a floor play layout of the company’s office. The attacks came after an Anonymous affiliated hacker, using the handle @ntisec, published links to vulnerable ICS systems running software from the firm Tridium online. The links included the address of an administrative system that controlled the HVAC system used by US Business 1, a New Jersey company that installs air conditioning systems for other companies, according to a copy of the July, 2012 Situational Information Report (PDF), issued by the Newark Division of the FBI. The alert concerning the February and March, 2012 attack was released by the web site Public Intelligence on Saturday. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment from Security […]
Update: New 25 GPU Monster Devours Passwords In Seconds
Editor’s note: I’ve updated the article with some new (and in some cases) clarifying detail from Jeremi. I’ve left changes in where they were made. The biggest changes: 1) an updated link to slides 2) clarifying that VCL refers to Virtual OpenCL and 3) that the quote regarding 14char passwords falling in 6 minutes was for LM encrypted – not NTLM encrypted passwords. Long (8 char) NTLM passwords would take much longer…around 5.5 hours. 😉 – Paul There needs to be some kind of Moore’s law analog to capture the tremendous advances in the speed of password cracking operations. Just within the last five years, there’s been an explosion in innovation in this ancient art, as researchers have realized that they can harness specialized silicon and cloud based computing pools to quickly and efficiently break passwords. A presentation at the Passwords^12 Conference in Oslo, Norway (slides available here – PDF), has […]
Latest Iranian Malware Targets Financial Software
There appears to be some professional differences of opinion about the latest super malware targeting the nation of Iran. Just days after Symantec Corp. warned about a new piece of malware, W32.Narilam, researchers at the Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab threw cold water on the report, saying their analysis suggests that Narilam is two to three years old and probably targeted financial software packages, rather than high value government or industrial systems. The back and forth started with Symantec’s Nov. 22nd blog post on Narilam, which claimed the malware had recently been found circulating in the “Middle East” – and particularly in Iran. Narilam was programmed to infect systems running Microsoft’s SQL database software, spreading through removable drives and network shared folders. It was designed to corrupt data, not to steal information, Symantec said. Though the Cupertino company made no attestation as to Narilam’s origins, Symantec did say the worm […]
