botnet

mobile malware by platform

New Malware Exploits Android Glitch To Block Removal

A new malicious program that runs on Android mobile devices exploits vulnerabilities in Google’s mobile operating system to extend the application’s permissions on the infected device, and to block attempts to remove the malicious application. Writing on securelist.com, Kaspersky Lab’s research blog, malware researcher Roman Unuchek called the newly discovered Trojan the “most sophisticated” malicious program yet detected that works with Android phones. He cited the Trojan’s advanced features, including complex obfuscation techniques that complicated analysis of the code, and the use of a previously unknown vulnerability in Android that allowed it to take control of and maintain a foothold on infected Android devices. Kaspersky said it has contacted Google regarding the malware and the alleged vulnerabilities in Android. Google was unable to confirm that prior to publication. The malware, dubbed Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a, is described as a “multi function Trojan.” Like most profit-oriented mobile malware, Obad is primarily an SMS Trojan, […]

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Liberty Reserve Taken Offline

Illiquid: Liberty Reserve Gone, Cybercrooks Look For Alternatives

Now that authorities in Spain, Costa Rica and the U.S. have taken down online money transfer service Liberty Reserve, the cyber underground is facing a serious liquidity crunch, as criminal gangs, botmasters, spammers and malicious hackers look for a safe platform on which to transact business. But finding a ready substitute may not be easy, with Liberty Reserve’s close competitors showing less tolerance of its “no questions asked” account creation policy, and less scrupulous outlets wary of the long arm of the U.S. Justice Department. Liberty Reserve (libertyreserve.com) went offline on Friday along with dozens of other domains operated by its founder, Arthur Budovsky – a.k.a. “Arthur Belanchuk” a.k.a “Eric Paltz.” Budovsky was arrested in Spain on May 24th. Spanish authorities acted at the request of authorities in Costa Rica, where Budovsky had set up shop, and the U.S. A three-count criminal complaint filed there by the U.S. Attorney for the […]

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New Search Engine Wants To Be A Google For Code

Researchers at The University of Cambridge in the UK have created a Google-like search engine that can peer inside applications, analyzing their underlying code. The search tool, named “Rendezvous,” has applications for a number of problems. It could be used to help reverse engineer potentially malicious files, copyright enforcement or to find evidence of plagiarism within applications, according to a blog post by Ross Anderson, a Professor of Security Engineering at the Laboratory.   Rendezvous was unveiled in a seminar on Tuesday by Wei Ming Khoo, a doctoral student in the Security Group working at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory. The engine, which can be accessed here, allows users to submit an unknown binary, which is decompiled, parsed and compared against a library of code harvested from open source projects across the Internet. Code reuse has become a pressing security issue. The application security firm Veracode has named reused […]

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Home Invasion: Home Routers May Be The Next Big Hack

Most of us have broadband at home. It’s always there. It works and, for the most part, we don’t think about it until it goes down. Our amnesia extends to the humble home gateway or broadband router that is our connection to the global Internet. That piece of CPE (or customer-premises equipment) probably sits on our desk, or down in our basement gathering dust. Strong password? Meh. Firmware update? Hey, ‘if it ain’t broke…don’t fix it!” But all those small, insecure devices could add up to a major security crisis for users and their Internet Service Provider (ISP), according to researchers at the firm IOActive. Writing on the IOActive blog, researchers Ehab Hussein (@_obzy_) and Sofiane Taimat (@_sud0) say that millions of  vulnerable home routers and gateways are vulnerable to trivial attacks. Those devices could be harnessed by cyber criminal groups, state-backed actors or hacktivists for malware distribution, spam or […]

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Botnet Of Embedded Devices Used To Map Internet

Botnets are mostly linked with spam e-mail campaigns, denial of service attacks and data theft. But global networks of compromised hosts can be used for a variety of ends – not all of them malicious. That was the idea behind “Internet Census 2012,” a stealth project by an unnamed and unknown researcher/hacker to map the entire IPV4 Internet address space using a massive network of compromised devices. The results, published in the form of a research paper, underscore the problem of  unsecured embedded devices, including set top boxes, home routers and critical infrastructure, with the hacker able to locate and compromise these systems, creating a botnet of more than 420,000 nodes. According to a copy of the report, the project grew out of an experiment to locate unprotected devices online using nmap, the open source scanning tool. By compromising each vulnerable host and then enlisting it to scan for other […]

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