Security Response

For years now, we in the cyber security industry have been saying an explosion of mobile malware is just around the corner. Beginning in earnest this year, we have indeed observed a marked increase in threats targeting mobile devices – particularly the Android platform. However, it’s probably not accurate to say the expected explosion has in fact occurred. The reality is that cybercriminals are still very much in the exploratory phase of figuring out how to monetize the exploitation of mobile devices. This is the topic of Symantec’s latest research. You can read the whitepaper in its entirety here.

Above all else, our analysis highlights how most current efforts to monetize mobile malware have only a low revenue-per-infection ratio. This has severely limited the return on investment achievable by attackers. It also offers detailed insight into the top current mobile malware monetization schemes observed by Symantec,...

Since we still haven’t had much success in determining the likely target of Stuxnet, we have decided to release at a high level the behavior of the PLC code. However, we suspect this level of detail while interesting probably still is not enough to identify the potential target.  You can find the additional information starting on page 38 of the latest revision of our paper.

Our previous call for verifiable experts in STL coding that have worked in multiple critical infrastructure industries and coded large STL programs for large industrial control systems in those multiple industries was unsuccessful.  If anyone still wishes to help, they can contact me by clicking on my name at the top to send me a private message.  

Originally this revision would have also described in more detail the remaining Task Scheduler privilege escalation vulnerability, but the vulnerability...

Zeus is a botnet package that allows for the easy creation and command and control of a botnet.  We've discussed Zeus previously in Zeus, King of the Underground Crimeware Toolkits. The main purpose of Zeus is to steal online credentials such as online banking passwords, but it can be configured to steal passwords from any online site. 

Today, the BBC is reporting that police in the UK have arrested two suspects in relation to Zeus. While the details are preliminary, the two likely appear to be users of the Zeus botnet package rather than the actual creators, and thus the prevalence and usage of Zeus is likely to continue.

We've created a research paper providing more in-depth information on Zeus, including how the bot is created, what functionality it has, and additional screenshots on...

SMS phishing (“SMSishing”) occurs when you receive an SMS message that is purportedly sent from a reputable source, such as your bank, asking for personal details. Although SMSishing first started a few years ago, a couple of recent SMSishing attempts directed at some colleagues of mine provided a good opportunity to document the attack.

The attacks start when attackers use automated services that allow sending many SMS messages at once and send messages such as the following:

Or:

In the above two cases, the bank names and phone numbers are censored, but the messages typically follow the same pattern of specifying a bank and that there is some type of urgent need for you to contact them. When you call the number you...