Malicious office documents make up 43 percent of malware downloads
Infecting office files has been a popular malware technique for some time but is still popular among cybercriminals as it allows them to evade many detection solutions. New research from AtlasVPN reveals that 43 percent of all malware downloads in the second quarter of this year were malicious office documents.
This is an increase from the same period in 2020 when only 14 percent of malware came in office files. In the third quarter of last year the volume jumped to 38 percent before declining to 34 percent in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021.
Fake pirated software hides dropper-as-a-service
Researchers at SophosLabs have uncovered malware being distributed by a network of websites acting as a 'dropper as a service', serving up a variety of other nasty packages.
These droppers for hire are delivering bundles of malicious and unwanted content to targets looking for cracked versions of popular business and consumer applications.
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A majority of email links lead to malicious sites
A new email security report from GreatHorn reveals that 30 percent of links received by email lead to malicious sites.
Spoofed email accounts or websites are the most experienced form of a business email compromise (BEC) attack as 71 percent of organizations acknowledge they have seen one over the past year. This is followed by spear phishing (69 percent) and malware (24 percent).
Malicious bot traffic hits new highs
New data from Imperva Research Labs sees the highest percentage of bad bot traffic (25.6 percent) since the company began reporting traffic in 2014.
At the same time traffic from humans fell by 5.7 percent. More than 40 percent of all web traffic requests originated from a bot last year, suggesting the growing scale and widespread impact of bots in daily life.
Punishing the victim won't stop ransomware
Imagine, for a moment, that you own a small business -- say, a regional dairy farm producing milk, ice cream, yogurt, and other products. And, like so many companies in the food manufacturing sector, you get hit by ransomware. You can’t access any of the data you need to run your business -- so you don’t know which products to ship, where to ship them, what prices you’ve negotiated, who’s paid and who hasn’t… everything is locked up. And, the clock is ticking -- you can’t tolerate extended downtime or products will spoil and customers will defect to other vendors.
The ransomware threat actor wants $50,000 to give you the decryption keys for your data. Your cyber insurance company tells you to just pay the ransom and they’ll cover most of it, as long as it doesn’t violate the rules set up by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against paying ransom to gangs or nation states that are under economic sanctions. But, they do some research and determine the ransomware threat actor would fall under these rules, so they rescind the recommendation and will only partially offset what would be an enormously expensive IT consulting engagement to restore the systems in an acceptable period of time.
Fileless malware attacks surge while ransomware declines
Fileless malware attacks were up nearly 900 percent in 2020 and cryptominers grew by 25 percent, but ransomware payloads dropped by 48 percent compared with 2019.
These are findings of the latest internet security report from WatchGuard Technologies which is based on endpoint threat intelligence following WatchGuard's acquisition of Panda Security in June 2020.
How AI can help prevent 'catastrophic forgetting' of malware data
With large numbers of new samples appearing every day the old signature-based methods of malware detection have become unwieldy.
AI can learn from millions of samples, but if it uses all samples for optimum detection that means slower learning and updates. The alternative is to use only select samples to keep up with the rate of change of malware, but this runs the risk of 'catastrophic forgetting ' of older patterns.
29 percent of threats previously unknown as hackers update tactics
The latest Quarterly Threat Insights Report from HP shows that 29 percent of malware captured between October and December 2020 was previously unknown, due to the widespread use of packers and obfuscation techniques by attackers seeking to evade detection.
In addition 88 percent of malware was delivered by email into users' inboxes, in many cases having bypassed gateway filters. It took 8.8 days, on average, for threats to become known by hash to antivirus engines, giving hackers over a week’s head-start on their campaigns.
Enterprises at risk from malware delivered by cloud apps
New research shows that the majority of all malware is now delivered via cloud applications, showing how attackers increasingly abuse popular cloud services to evade legacy security defenses, putting enterprise data at risk.
The report from Netskope reveals that 61 percent of all malware was delivered via a cloud app, up from 48 percent year-over-year.
Linux malware Kobalos steals credentials using hacked OpenSSH software
A trojanized version of OpenSSH software is being used to steal SSH credentials from high performance computing (HPC) clusters, reports security firm ESET. The Linux malware has been dubbed Kobalos, and is described as "small, yet complex" and "tricksy".
Despite its diminutive size, the Kobalos backdoor is hitting some major targets including government systems in the US, universities in Europe, and a major ISP in Asia. Security experts report that while the multiplatform backdoor works on Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris, "there are also artifacts indicating that variants of this malware may exist for AIX and even Windows".
International law enforcement effort takes down Emotet from the inside
Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands, Germany, the US, the UK, France, Lithuania, Canada and Ukraine have collaborated to disrupt Emotet, one of the most significant botnets of the past decade.
The effort, coordinated by Europol the joint European policing agency, gained control of the Emotet infrastructure and took it down from the inside. Infected machines of victims have been redirected towards this law enforcement-controlled infrastructure.
IObit Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 14 offers even greater protection against cyberattacks
Putting a computer online without adequate protection is simply asking for trouble. Even the most tech savvy user can fall victim to viruses, malware and other forms of cyberattack -- so security software is essential these days. In the latest update to its offering in this field, IObit has released Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 14.
With the coronavirus pandemic meaning that more people than ever are working from home, it has never been more important to keep your computer locked down against attack and infection. As well as offering a range of security and protection options for Windows users, the Advanced SystemCare Ultimate suite also provides a range of optimization tools and a selection of handy utilities to make day-to-day computer use easier, more secure and more pleasant.
FreakOut malware targets Linux users by exploiting multiple vulnerabilities
Linux-based systems are generally touted for their high levels of security, but this does not mean that they are completely immune to threats. Illustrating this, security firm Check Point Software has shared details of a series of attacks based on the FreakOut malware.
The company says that the aim of the malware appears to be the creation of an IRC botnet which could be used to launch DDoS attacks, run crypto miners, and more. Linux users running certain products are being warned to get their systems patched as soon as possible to avoid problems.
Cryptojacking malware increases as Bitcoin hits new highs
Researchers from Avira Protection Labs have recorded a 53 percent increase in coinminer malware attacks in Q4 2020 compared to the previous quarter.
With the Bitcoin price reaching a new all-time high earlier this month, this points to a connection between the rapid price rise and increased coinminer malware activity as criminals seek to cash in.
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