Dodgy affiliates use malware to flog Symantec and Check Point
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Malvertisement break Unscrupulous affiliates are using malware to advertise security software from legitimate firms. The practice is the brainchild of people who make a commission for every sale they generate - and not security vendors themselves. The practice raises serious concerns about the integrity and policing of affiliate programs from big names in security including Symantec and Check Point.â¦
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Malware purveyors earlier this week cracked part of the CA web site and redirected visitors to a site known to be serving malicious software.
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A malicious email purporting to offer a link to download Lycos&#39; controversial spam busting screensaver is infecting users with a Trojan - proving that the fall out from the botched and now ditched service will continue to cause users pain.
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A screensaver targeting spam-related websites appears to have been too successful.
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Trojan.Mebroot malware is read at startup, then changes the Windows kernel to avoid detection.
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Security researcher demonstrates a way to use cross-site scripting to remotely spam an internal network printer.
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Honeypot project shows more than adult sites contain malicious threats.
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Latest worm poses a risk to many Web sites using the PHP scripting language.
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Evil twin hash bash Antivirus firms are concerned about the emergence of techniques that could render meaningless the use of checksums to mark applications as safe.â¦
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Security experts warn of banner ads with a bad attitude--and a link to malicious code. Also: Phishers, be gone.
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WholeSecurity's new software claims to identify fraudulent sites.
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Web gateway filtering specialist Finjan is reporting a new toolkit that uses randomized JavaScript to stay hidden from virus crawlers and deliver its payload via compromised Web sites.Dubbed by Finjan's Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC) as the "Random JS Toolkit," the malware development package is allowing attackers to create threats that only attempt to victimize an individual computer in the same manner a single time to protect against discovery by anti-virus systems and researchers' automated "crawlers."By dynamically changing the JavaScript employed to deliver each variant of attack being created, and by using random file names that are only delivered to the same machine or IP address once, Finjan researchers said the malware authoring package is meant to avoid the programs used by AV researchers to find new threats emerging on the Web.Typically when automated crawler programs come across new attack samples, they return to the threats' source URLs to verify their names and characteristics and to create signature files that allow their products to block the programs -- or they enter the sites onto so-called blacklists of compromised domains.However, once a machine has been infected with an attack made using the Random JS Toolkit, the threat will recognize that the machine has already been targeted and won't attempt to download it again, thereby thwarting efforts to identify or track the exploits, Finjan experts contend.During the month of December 2007, Finjan estimates that more than 10,000 individual sites were compromised with attacks built using the Random JS Toolkit. Most of the URLs serving as distribution points for the attacks were legitimate sites that had been hijacked, the company said.Among the infected sites were some that would qualify as well-known, highly trusted domains, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer of Finjan.Ben-Itzhak said the toolkit serves as a prime example of the types of tactics he expects leading-edge malware authors to utilize more frequently in the coming year."We've found the initial 10,000 sites, but we're sure that there are many more that have already been infected. When we can find this number of exploits, it is clear that this must be a very significant attack that has affected a lot of people," he said. "Using the combination of techniques available in this toolkit, the threats that are being created can become very powerful and stay alive to infect people for longer periods of time."Among the types of malware infections being served up using the toolkit, Finjan has observed everything from Trojan viruses and keystroke loggers to botnet recruiting programs, he said.For its part, Finjan's real-time code inspection technology can defend against such threats because it eschews the use of traditional virus signatures or blacklists in favor of constant monitoring for any malware activity coming across a network armed with one of its devices, Ben-Itzhak maintains.Rival AV vendors, including Symantec, contend that features such as the market leader's recently developed "generic exploit prevention," based on behavioral cues, should also be able to isolate and defend against such emerging attacks.Unlike the widespread iFrame attacks that proliferated across the Web during 2007, threats created using the Random JS Toolkit will also be much harder for security researchers to track down because they do not lead back to central sites where the actual malware code itself is hosted, Finjan maintains.Since the involved malware code is loaded directly on a site, and it won't attempt infect the same computer or IP address twice, traditional URL blacklisting and signature-based techniques will likely prove futile against the attack, the company said.However, from what the security appliance vendor can deduce, Ben-Itzhak said the firm believes there is only one malware group currently using the toolkit."From what we can tell, all the information flowing back from the compromised sites is heading to the same server," he said. "This indicates that there is probably only one group controlling this malware code thus far, and that they are probably being very successful; this is just another step forward for the criminals involved to continue to improve their attack methods and remain undetected."Ben-Itzhak said that the involved server is not one that matches any of the company's lists of machines controlled by well-known malware authoring groups such as the Russian Business Network. The server the company is tracking was originally located in Europe, but has recently been moved to China -- and likely will continue to be moved around to avoid detection, according to the expert.Most of the data the security company has seen being sent to the server has been related to online banking username and password data, he said.As part of its investigation, Finjan discovered that one of the Web properties infected with the randomized JavaScript attacks was an online advertising network that serves up as many as 14 million online banner ads per week. The security device maker reported that unnamed company was informed and is currently working to clean out its systems.
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Three new MyDoom variants have been found in the wild that contain not only malicious code but a plea for a job. MyDoom U, V and W attempt to download a Trojan called Surila onto users&#39; computers, which would
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eTrust Antivirus mistook a critical security process for malware.
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A piracy ring that has cost Symantec tens of millions of dollars in revenue is one reason the company is pushing all of its customers to sign up for a new online licensing program to verify the authenticity of their software.
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Antivirus firm Symantec is facing a denial-of-service attack on its Web site from the latest version of the MyDoom worm. Authors of MyDoom.
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(InfoWorld) - The notorious Mpack hacker toolkit is installing malware that carries out its chores -- including spewing spam -- from within the Windows kernel, making it extremely difficult for security software to detect it, Symantec said Thursday. The Trojan horse that Symantec has dubbed "Srizbi" is being dropped onto some PCs by the multi-exploit Mpack, a ready-to-use attack application that until recently has been selling for around $1,000. Responsibility for a large-scale attack launched from thousands of hijacked Web sites last month was pinned on Mpack, as was a follow-up campaign waged from compromised Internet porn sites. Although Mpack can force-feed any malicious code to a commandeered PC, Symantec researchers said Srizbi stands out. Rather than follow the current practice of hiding only some activities with rootkit-cloaking technologies, Srizbi goes completely undercover. The new Trojan, said Symantec, works without any user-mode payload and does everything from kernel mode, including its main task: sending spam. "When Trojans go to spam, they go out to user land," said Dave Cole, director of Symantec's security response team, referring to malware writers injecting their code into visible Windows processes to carry out spam-sending tasks. "Srizbi, though, is basically using kernel libraries [to send spam]," said Cole. "It's calling the kernel libraries it needs." A blog entry by Kaoru Hayashi, a senior security response engineer at Symantec, spelled out the technical details. "Srizbi seems to move a step forward by working totally in kernel mode without the need to inject anything into user mode," wrote Hayashi. "To manipulate the network connection directly in kernel mode, it attaches NDIS and TCP/IP drivers and gets all the Ndis* and Zw* functions that it needs. This technique also allows the Trojan to bypass firewall and sniffer tools, and to hide all its network activities." Translation: Only advanced security tools will detect Srizbi. It's also the first full-kernel malware spotted in the wild. "It's evolutionary, not revolutionary, but it's indicative of what we see in the threat landscape," Cole said. "And if your security software is relying only on [Windows'] APIs to detect malware, you won't be protected. You need something that uses modern, anti-rootkit techniques." Cole added other information to the Srizbi story, in particular his suspicion that its author is probably the same hacker who created Rustock, a dangerous polymorphic Trojan from 2006 that also relied on rootkit technology to avoid detection. "It appears to be from the same author," said Cole. "He's been quiet for a while, and everyone has been waiting for Rustock 2.0. Some thought he'd maybe went away, but [Srizbi] uses some of the same components as Rustock." Cole expects Srizbi to follow a similar trajectory. "The pattern with Rustock seemed to be to get something out there that might be sloppy at first, but to evolve it over time. It's reasonable to believe that [Srizbi] will do the same." According to Symantec's research, the new Trojan is sloppy. "Users may be able to detect the presence of this malicious code via a registry key that happens to not be hidden by the rootkit component," said an alert to Symantec's DeepSight customers. The registry key to look for, said Symantec, is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\RcpApi\\"MachineNum" = "[six random digits-six random digits-two random digits]" In other Mpack-related news, a third Symantec security researcher said today that he's spotted the toolkit selling for as little as $150, an 85 percent reduction from its previous $1,000 price tag. "Considering the toolkit is written in a script language, it is easy to redistribute and modify," said Eric Chien, a Symantec security response engineer. "The sellers likely didn't even need to buy it themselves, but rather probably found some of the multiple Web sites that did not employ standard Web site protections, allowing them to download the whole kit for free. "Talk about clearance sales." Mpack's wider "distribution" spells trouble not only for the hacker -- suspected to be Russian -- who created the multiple-strike attack kit, but for users, too. "Its usage is likely to grow," said Chien. "In addition, without a single author controlling the distribution of the toolkit, we also expect to see forks of the source code with additional exploits, bug fixes, and other feature enhancements."