Tag Archives: security-read

DDoS attacks: $100,000 per hour is at risk during peak revenue generation periods

Neustar and Harris Interactive conducted global, independent research of 1,010 directors, managers, CISOs, CSOs, CTOs, and other c-suite executives to find out how DDoS attacks affect their organizations and what measures are in place to counter these threats. The respondents span many industries, including technology, financial services, retail, healthcare and energy. “DDoS attacks are the zeitgeist of today’s Internet,” said Barrett Lyon, pioneer of the DDoS defense industry and Head of Research and Development at … More ?

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DDoS attacks: $100,000 per hour is at risk during peak revenue generation periods

Locky ransomware makes a comeback, courtesy of Necurs botnet

The Necurs botnet has, once again, begun pushing Locky ransomware on unsuspecting victims. The botnet, which flip-flops from sending penny stock pump-and-dump emails to booby-trapped files that lead to malware (usually Locky or Dridex), has been spotted slinging thousand upon thousand of emails in the last three or four days. “Talos has seen in excess of 35K emails in the last several hours associated with this newest wave of Locky,” Cisco Talos researchers noted on … More ?

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Locky ransomware makes a comeback, courtesy of Necurs botnet

IoT devices under attack: Amnesia hijacks, BrickerBot destroys

Every hour of every day, computer systems and IoT devices are under attack by bots trying to recruit them into growing botnets. Security researchers have recently highlighted two of these threats coming after Linux- and BusyBox-based systems and devices. Amnesia A year after security researcher Rotem Kerner discovered a remote code execution vulnerability that affected digital video recorders (DVRs) manufactured by Chinese company TVT Digital and sold by more than 70 different vendors around the … More ?

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IoT devices under attack: Amnesia hijacks, BrickerBot destroys

How the Necurs botnet influences the stock market

After a three-months-long partial hiatus, the Necurs botnet is back to flinging spam emails left and right. But unlike before the break, when it was mostly delivering the infamous Locky ransomware or the Dridex banking Trojan, the botnet is now engaged in distributing emails with no malicious attachment or link. According to Cisco Talost researchers, the botnet has been spotted firing off short-lasting but sizeable bursts of penny stock pump-and-dump emails. Necurs botnet’s latest campaign … More ?

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How the Necurs botnet influences the stock market

185,000+ vulnerable Wi-Fi cameras just waiting to be hijacked

A generic wireless camera manufactured by a Chinese company and sold around the world under different names and brands can be easily hijacked and/or roped into a botnet. The flaw that allows this to happen is found in a custom version of GoAhead, a lightweight embedded web server that has been fitted into the devices. This and other vulnerabilities have been found by security researcher Pierre Kim, who tested one of the branded cameras – … More ?

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185,000+ vulnerable Wi-Fi cameras just waiting to be hijacked

Advanced Windows botnet spreads Mirai malware

Kaspersky Lab experts are analyzing the first Windows-based spreader for the Mirai malware as part of a concerted effort to close down Mirai botnets in the wild. The Windows bot appears to have been created by a developer with more advanced skills than the attackers who unleashed the massive Mirai-powered DDoS attacks in late 2016, a fact that has worrying implications for the future use and targets of Mirai-based attacks. The malware author is likely … More ?

DDoS attacks increasingly form blended attacks of more vulnerabilities

DDoS attacks increasingly formed blended attacks of four or more vulnerabilities over the course of the fourth quarter of 2016, with an intent to overload targeted monitoring, detection and logging systems, according to Nexusguard. Hybrid attacks were a common attack pattern against financial and government institutions. DDoS botnet activity: Top attacking countries The supersized Mirai attack from Q3 set the stage for Q4 challenges, resulting in a ripple of botnets from connected devices and the … More ?

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DDoS attacks increasingly form blended attacks of more vulnerabilities

Monitoring scanning activities that could lead to IoT compromises

IoT devices are ideal targets for attackers looking to build DDoS botnets because they have limited or non-existent security features. Some IoT devices utilize hard-coded default passwords. Many devices have unnecessary services running that can be exploited, and others have unprotected management interfaces. Most important for DDoS attackers, IoT devices offer high-speed connections that are always on, which allows for a large, predictable amount of attack traffic volume per compromised device. Monitoring login attempts Looking … More ?

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Monitoring scanning activities that could lead to IoT compromises

The emergence of new global cybercriminal attack patterns

The findings of a new Malwarebytes report illustrate a significant shift in cybercriminal attack and malware methodology from previous years. Ransomware, ad fraud and botnets, the subject of so much unjustified hype over previous years, surged to measurable prominence in 2016 and evolved immensely. Cybercriminals migrated to these methodologies en masse, impacting nearly anyone and everyone. To better understand just how drastically the threat landscape evolved in 2016, researchers examined data taken from Windows and … More ?

Review: DNS Security

About the authors Allan Liska is a Consulting Systems Engineer at FireEye, and Geoffrey Stowe is an Engineering Lead at Palantir Technologies. Inside DNS Security: Defending the Domain Name System DNS security is a topic that rarely comes up, and when it does, it’s usually after an attack or breach disruptive enough to merit a mention in the news. Last year’s DDoS attack against US-based DNS provider Dyn was one of those, but it isn’t … More ?

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Review: DNS Security