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Beware of New year e-cards

By derek | Filed in browser, Exploits, Malware, microsoft, mozilla, Phishing, Rogue Software, scams, spam, Warnings and Alerts

Please avoid all untrusted Happy New Year e-card links. The Shadowserver Foundation is warning of a new malicious and advanced botnet that has just been discovered and ressembles the Storm Worm designs.

New Fast Flux Botnet for the Holidays: Could it be Storm Worm 3.0/Waledac 2.0?
http://www.shadowserver.org/wiki/pmwiki.php/Calendar/20101230
Those of us here at Shadowserver hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season and are ready to bring in the new year. We were trying to relax and enjoy relatively quiet times until we noticed a new spam campaign that recently started. At first it looked like your regular old holiday e-card scams that have been around for years.

However, upon closer inspection it looks like we could be dealing with the next generation of Storm Worm or Waledac. If you consider Waledac to be Storm Worm 2.0, this looks like it could be version 3.0 or at least Waledac 2.0. There are no real version numbers of course, but we don’t have anything else to call it yet. What’s it involve you ask?

CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW BOTNET

Well here’s the list of what we’ve seen so far:

* Large scale Spam campaigns sending out e-mails with links
* New malicious domains that are fast flux! (TTL of 0 and name servers that frequently update IPs)
* Links are to several hacked websites hosting HTML pages that refresh to new malicious domains
* Links are also directly to new malicious domains
* Malicious domains hosting links to fake flash player and refreshes to exploit pages
* Malware installs that begin beaching to several hosts over HTTP (what we dubbed HTTP2p with Waledac)
* Malware that’s been updated to look a bit more like legitimate than past variants
* A very buggy network that is not often available (upstream devices not available)
* Changing/Updated binaries

AVOID THESE E-CARD MESSAGES:

Let’s start with the Spam Campaign. We’ve seen a multitude of subject lines and bodies. Below you’ll find a list of subjects we’ve seen and an example e-mail message. These are coming from all over the Internet with spoofed sender addresses.

Greeting for you!
Greeting you with heartiest New Year wishes
Greetings to You
Happy New Year greetings e-card is waiting for you
Happy New Year greetings for you
Happy New Year greetings from your friend
Have a happy and colorful New Year!
l want to share Greeting with you
New Year 2011 greetings for you
You have a greeting card
You have a New Year Greeting!
You have received a greetings card
You’ve got a Happy New Year Greeting Card!

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Skype Update scam

By derek | Filed in Exploits, Malware, Phishing, Privacy, Rogue Software, scams, Skype, spam, Warnings and Alerts


Following on from my previous post, the scammers are also using Skype

Fake Skype website


The fake website looks like this and the membership page is exactly the same as shown previously

Skype email scam

Once again Don’t fall for it only only use the genuine Skype site to download skype & update it

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Adobe Reader Update Scam

By derek | Filed in adobe, Exploits, Malware, Phishing, Privacy, Rogue Software, scams, spam, Warnings and Alerts


There are about to be updates issued for Adobe reader to plug security holes and vulnerabilities. The scammers have jumped in on the act and are sending emails pretending to be from an Adobe update service.

Adobe PDF scam email

If you are foolish enough to follow the links then you end up on a scam site trying to sell you an unknown PDF reader, BUT the sting is that you don’t just download & try it or even buy it outright. Oh no ! you have to create a membership and give all your details before you even find out how much is being taken from your bank or credit card.


Don’t fall for it and only update Adobe reader from the official Adobe site, when the actual Update is released ( It is expected in Early October 2010)
Or of course use an alternative PDF reader of your choice, Just be aware that PDF vulnerabilities do affect all PDF readers and some might not get updated as quickly as others. Just because you use an alternative doesn’t mean that you are immune or safe from vulnerabilities in Adobe products

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The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) : Investigating a new win32hlp and Internet Explorer issue:

By derek | Filed in browser, Exploits, Malware, microsoft, Warnings and Alerts

The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) : Investigating a new win32hlp and Internet Explorer issue:

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2010/02/28/investigating-a-new-win32hlp-and-internet-explorer-issue.aspx

Hi everyone,
On Friday 2/26/2010, an issue was posted publicly that could allow an attacker to host a maliciously crafted web page and run arbitrary code if they could convince a user to visit the web page and then get them to press the F1 key in response to a pop up dialog box. We are not aware of any attacks seeking to exploit this issue at this time and in the current state of our investigation, we have determined that users running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista, are not affected by this issue. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Security Advisory 979682 Released

By derek | Filed in Exploits, Malware, microsoft, updates, Warnings and Alerts

Security Advisory 979682 Released

Today we released Security Advisory 979682 to address an Elevation of Privilege (EoP) vulnerability in the Windows kernel, affecting all currently supported versions of 32-bit Windows. 64-bit versions of Windows, including Windows Server 2008 R2, are not affected. The advisory provides customers with actionable guidance to help with protections against exploit of this vulnerability.

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must already have valid logon credentials and be able to log on to a system locally, meaning they must already have an account on the system. An attacker could then elevate their privileges to the administrative level and run programs of their choice on the system.

To help mitigate exploit of this vulnerability, customers who do not require NT Virtual DOS Mode (NTVDM) or support for 16-bit applications, can disable the NTVDM subsystem. Information on this workaround can be found in the Advisory.

We are not currently aware of any active attacks against this vulnerability and believe risk to customers, at this time, is limited. We continue to recommend customers review the mitigations and workarounds detailed in the Security Advisory.

We are also working with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners to help provide broader protections for customers.

Our teams are continuing to work on an update and we will take appropriate action to protect customers when the update has met the quality bar for broad distribution. That may include releasing the update out-of-band.

The Security Advisory will be updated with any new developments so if you are not already subscribed to our comprehensive alerts, please do so in order to be alerted by email when new information is added.

We will also keep customers apprised of any additional details and updates through the MSRC Blog.

Thanks,

Jerry Bryant

via http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2010/01/20/security-advisory-979682-released.aspx

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IE out of band patch

By derek | Filed in browser, Exploits, microsoft, Warnings and Alerts

This is an advance notification of one out-of-band security bulletin that Microsoft is intending to release on January 21, 2010. The bulletin will be for Internet Explorer to address limited, targeted attacks against customers of Internet Explorer 6, as well as fixes for vulnerabilities rated Critical that are not currently under active attack.

The full version of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for this release can be found at  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-jan.mspx.

RoboForm: Learn more...
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Warning IE 0 day exploit

By derek | Filed in browser, Exploits, Malware, microsoft, Warnings and Alerts

http://siblog.mcafee.com/cto/operation-%E2%80%9Caurora%E2%80%9D-hit-google-others/

http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2010/01/14/more-details-on-operation-aurora/

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/979352.mspx

I will  keep you posted when I hear more

best advice at this time is make sure antivirus is updated to protect, watch where you surf & consider an alternative browser or set IE protection to high

However bear in mind these have all been targeted attacks against specific companies & institutions so less likely to affect the average user, at least until the skiddies get their hands on the exploit

OK if you are still using IE 6 or 7 on any version of windows

use the fixit Microsoft have issued http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979352

You do not need this fix if you are using Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) or on Windows Vista SP1 or later versions ( including Windows 7 ) . This is because Internet Explorer 8 opts-in to DEP by default on these platforms.

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Adobe Issues Critical Updates To Flash, AIR – Security Watch

By derek | Filed in adobe, Apple, browser, Exploits, microsoft, updates

Adobe released new versions of Flash and AIR today to address vulnerabilities in both products. Applying these updates as soon as practicable is a good idea, as Flash vulnerabilities are popular exploit vehicles in the wild.

Click here to install Flash 10.0.42.34.

Click here to install AIR 1.5.3.

The expanded security advisory explains that critical vulnerabilities could provoke crashes or remote code execution. Adobe Flash Player 10.0.32.18 and earlier versions and Adobe AIR 1.5.2 and earlier versions on all platforms are vulnerable.

7 new vulnerabilities are described cursorily. A patch to an eighth and older vulnerability is also updated. Adobe issues thanks to 6 different researchers for the help they provided with the vulnerabilities.

The advisory also adds that Flash Player version 10.1, which Adobe expects to release in the first half of 2010, will be the last to support PowerPC-based G3 Macs. They are discontinuing support, including security updates, past that version because they are implementing performance enhancements not supported in those processors.

RoboForm: Learn more...
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Beware of fake shopping sites

By derek | Filed in browser, Exploits, firefox, microsoft, mozilla, Phishing, Privacy, scams, Warnings and Alerts


With the seasonal shopping season well underway, watch out for fake shopping sites and phishing emails trying to get your identity & credit card details.

A slightly different approach came into my inbox today which asked me to confirm the item in my shopping basket. Now I haven’t shopped with Littlewoods online but you can be sure that thousands of people have and the same scam will be applied to just about every well known online shopping site this season.

The email looks quite believable
littlewoods_email

The website if you follow the link looks exactly like the real Littlwoods shopping site Account sign in page EXCEPT that the real Littlewwoods or ALL reputable shopping sites will have a Padlock icon and the  site address will start with HTTPS and the address bar will turn green to show that you are on a secure site

This screenshot shows the fake site and I have blanked out the address for safety reasons
littlewoods_web

These show how a genuine site will appear in Internet Explorer 8 on left and Firefox on right. Both show the padlock icon and a green safe address bar. A genuine shopping site will always start HTTPS to show a secure site when you are asked to put in any details. The front page of the site might be a normal http:
Unfortunately a lot of well known shopping sites haven’t yet signed up to the Extended Valuation green bar very secure system yet so watch for the closed padlock and HTTPS in the address bar to show a secure site. In Firefox browser the closed padlock is on the bottom right hand corner of the page, not in the browser address bar

littlewoods_IE real_littlewoods

I strongly recommend using ROBOFORM which keeps all passwords in a secure encrypted database that only you (not a keylogger or malware) can access and use it to create safe secure passwords

RoboForm: Learn more...

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WOW wowmatrix keylogger

By derek | Filed in Exploits, games, Malware, Phishing, Privacy, Rogue Software, scams, Warnings and Alerts


I was notified of a google advert for a fake wowmatrix site. The original genuine wowmatrix is seen by many games players as not completely within the rules of the games
Wowmatrix is an addon that makes it easier to update and install other tweaks and addons to your game. Obviously using a fake version that downloads false addons & tweaks and installs them leaves you open to a lot of problems.

The advert on google looks like a search listing and it is only apparant that it is a sponsored listing or advert on close inspection

wowmatrix Read the remainder of this entry »

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