Know your enemy: Defining the new taxonomy of malicious emails

Just as it is the default tool for most businesses, email’s capacity for rapid, mass communication has made it a favourite instrument of criminals. As a result, malicious emails have become a common occurrence in most consumer and business inboxes. Although chances are that most people will correctly identify the most common malicious emails as…

Russian hackers use OAuth, fake Google apps to phish users

The Russian hacking group blamed for targeting U.S. and European elections has been breaking into email accounts, not only by tricking victims into giving up passwords, but by stealing access tokens too. It’s sneaky hack that’s particularly worrisome, because it can circumvent Google’s 2-step verification, according to security firm Trend Micro. The group, known as…

Phishing attacks responsible for three-quarters of all malware

With phishing now widely used as a mechanism for distributing ransomware, a new NTT Security reveals that 77% of all detected ransomware globally was in four main sectors – business & professional services (28%), government (19%), health care (15%) and retail (15%). While technical attacks on the newest vulnerabilities tend to dominate the media, many…

The Necurs Botnet: A Pandora’s Box of Malicious Spam

This is the tale of a cybercrime botnet operation that, within about five years of its existence, has been named one of the largest botnets in the world. It’s called the Necurs botnet. It militarizes up to 6 million zombie endpoints, delivers some of the worst banking Trojans and ransomware threats in batches of millions…

Tens of thousands Windows systems implanted with NSA’s DoublePulsar

Has your Windows machine been implanted with NSA’s DoublePulsar backdoor? If you haven’t implemented the security updates released by Microsoft in March, chances are good that it has. What is DoublePulsar? DoublePulsar is a backdoor implant that enables the injection and running of DLLs – potentially malicious ones – on Windows computers. It was recently…

Brazilian Malware Never Sleeps: Meet EmbusteBot

IBM Research — Haifa Labs continually invests in the research and development of advanced malware analysis solutions that enhance IBM’s ability to quickly detect and neutralize malware as new and challenging threats arise. Our ongoing observations of the Brazilian cybercriminal landscape have revealed a perpetual rise in new malicious campaigns in this region of the…

Apple Mac OS Malware Spiked in Q4

Malware samples sharply increased for Mac OS devices in Q4 2016 as threat actors expand their targets outside Windows PCs, new McAfee report says. Mac OS malware increased by 247% in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new report by McAfee Labs. The dramatic increase in Apple Mac OS malware samples went from…

3, 2, 1, GO! Make backups of your data!

With the recent proliferation of ransomware, a type of malware that encrypts your data and holds it hostage until payment is received, what should be done to protect valuable data? One of the best defences against this threat is having a good backup strategy. This protects your data against all sorts of unpleasant mishaps. How frequently you…

Insider Threat Fear Greater Than Ever, Survey Shows

More than half of security pros say insider threat incidents have become more frequent in the past 12 months. Despite continued spending on security measures for controlling and monitoring access to sensitive data, more organizations than ever feel vulnerable to breaches caused by insiders with legitimate access to enterprise systems.