ESET Threat Blog

We have just completed fresh analysis of the malicious software known as Win32/Festi. While the "Festi" botnet created with this malware has been in business since the autumn of 2009 we can see that the software is frequently updated, as described in our analysis, and these updates mean Festi continues to be a potent threat … Read More…

The Flashback trojan has been all over the news lately, but it is not the only Mac malware threat out there at the moment. A few weeks ago, we published a technical analysis of OSX/Lamadai.A, the Mac OS X payload of a multi-platform attack exploiting the Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 to infect its victims. OSX/Lamadai.A has … Read More…

Earlier this month, researchers from AlienVault and Intego reported a new malware attack targeting Tibetan NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). The attack consisted of luring the victim into visiting a malicious website, which then would drop a malicious payload on the target’s computer using Java vulnerability CVE-2011-3544 and execute it. The webserver would serve a platform-specific JAR … Read More…

Malicious software that gets updates from a domain belonging to the Eurasian state of Georgia? This unusual behavior caught the attention of an analyst in ESET's virus laboratory earlier this year, leading to further analysis which revealed an information stealing trojan being used to target Georgian nationals in particular. After further investigation, ESET researchers were … Read More…

The Mac OS X information stealing malware OSX/Imuler, initially discovered last fall, has resurfaced. This time, instead of being installed by the OSX/Revir.A dropper, this new variant of OSX/Imuler hides itself inside a ZIP archive, right in the middle of an array of erotic pictures, waiting for the user to open the malicious application.

This new … Read More…

Aleksandr Matrosov, one of my colleagues in Moscow, writes:
This month we discovered some new facts relating to Win32/Carberp trojan activity. We have spent a lot of time writing about Carberp already, but interesting information is still coming to light. The first interesting information to attract our attention recently concerned stealing money from Facebook users. Before … Read More…

Yesterday’s announcement by the US Department of Justice that the operators of file-sharing site Megaupload had been indicted for operating a criminal enterprise that generated over $175 million by trafficking in over half a billion dollars of pirated copyrighted material has sent shockwaves across the Internet.  The accuracy of those figures may be questionable, but … Read More…

Exactly how people will abuse digital technology for their own ends is difficult to predict, but organizations must plan ahead to protect data and systems. That's why we have been posting our "best guess" cybersecurity predictions on the Threat Blog this month. Today we present 9 of the most important predictions in the form of … Read More…

This article was written in collaboration with my colleague Jean-Ian Boutin.
The Wigon botnet (also known as Cutwail) is being used in a massive spam campaign. A multitude of ruses are used to get the user to click on a link: fake LinkedIn or Facebook notifications, free Windows licenses, fake deliveries etc. The links are pointing … Read More…

Well, okay, if you happen to be an extremely fast reader. The Association of Anti Virus Asia Researcher’s (AVAR) 14th AVAR Conference just wrapped up in Hong Kong on Friday. This year, the focus was on security issues in and around the emerging Asian security market, and how to rise to the challenge. As one … Read More…