Author Archives: ddanchev

Dancho Danchev – Independent Security Consultancy, Threat Intelligence Analysis (OSINT/Cyber Counter Intelligence) and Competitive Intelligence research on demand. Insightful, unbiased, and client-tailored assessments, neatly communicated in the form of interactive reports – because anticipating the emerging threatscape is what shapes the big picture at the end of the day. Approach me at dancho.danchev@gmail.com

Report: 3,325% increase in malware targeting the Android OS

February 17, 2012 – 11:36 am

By Dancho Danchev Which is the most targeted mobile operating system? According to the recently released 2011 Mobile Threats Report from our partners at Juniper Networks, that’s the Android OS. Key summary points from the report:

Posted in Android, Keyloggers, malware, Passwords, social engineering | Leave a Comment

Spamvertised “Hallmark ecard” campaign leads to malware

February 17, 2012 – 9:44 am

By Dancho Danchev Cybercriminals are currently spamvertising a “You just received a e-card form somebody” themed malware campaign, impersonating Hallmark. More details:

Posted in Botnet activity, Downloaders, malware, Passwords, social engineering, spam | Leave a Comment

Twitter adds HTTPS support by default

February 15, 2012 – 1:37 pm

By Dancho Danchev On Monday, Twitter announced that it’s introducing support for secure HTTPS connections to all users by default. More details:

Posted in social networks | Leave a Comment

Report: Internet Explorer 9 leads in socially-engineered malware protection

February 14, 2012 – 6:17 pm

By Dancho Danchev According to a newly released report from NSS Labs, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 outperforms competing browsers in protecting against socially engineered malware. More details:

Posted in Exploits, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, malware, social engineering, Threat Research | Comments (4)

The United Nations hacked, Team Poison claims responsibility

February 10, 2012 – 6:33 pm

By Dancho Danchev A well known group of hackers has penetrated the networks of the United Nations, according to a note posted on Pastebin.com. The group claiming responsibility is Team Poison, a hacking group closely associated with the Anonymous hactivist movement. Team Poison members include TriCk, iN^SaNe, MLT,Phantom~, C0RPS3, f0rsaken, aXioM and ap0calypse. More details:

Posted in Threat Research | Comments (1)

Pharmaceutical scammers launch their own Web contest

February 10, 2012 – 6:13 pm

By Dancho Danchev What are pharmaceutical scammers up to? From active participation in black hat search engine optimization campaigns, to spamvertising of bogus links – including QR Codes – and compromising of web sites with high page rank in order to redirect to pharmaceutical scams, scammers are keeping themselves pretty busy in order to monetize as much [...]

Posted in Blackhat SEO, social engineering, spam | Leave a Comment

Researchers intercept two client-side exploits serving malware campaigns

February 8, 2012 – 4:52 pm

By Dancho Danchev Security researchers from Webroot have intercepted two currently live client-side exploits serving malware campaigns that have already managed to infect over 20,000 PCs across the globe, primarily in the United States. Based upon detailed analysis, it can be concluded that both campaigns are launched by the same cybercriminal. More details:

Posted in Downloaders, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Keyloggers, malware, Passwords, Threat Research, Trojans | Comments (3)

Researchers spot Citadel, a ZeuS crimeware variant

February 8, 2012 – 1:35 pm

By Dancho Danchev Security researchers from “Tracking Cyber Crime” have spotted a new ZeuS crimeware variant, that’s based on the leaked ZeuS source code from last year. Dubbed Citadel, the crimeware is positioned as a universal spyware system, whose modular nature allows cybercriminals to offer flexibly priced value-added services such as managed malware crypting, and [...]

Posted in Downloaders, Keyloggers, malware, Passwords, rootkit, Threat Research, Trojans | Leave a Comment

A peek inside the Smoke Malware Loader

February 3, 2012 – 5:07 pm

By Dancho Danchev The competitive arms race between security vendors and malicious cybercriminals constantly produces new defensive mechanisms, next to new attack platforms and malicious tools aiming to efficiently exploit and infect as many people as possible. Continuing the “A peek inside…” series, in this post I will profile yet another malware loader. This time it’s [...]

Posted in Downloaders, Keyloggers, malware, Passwords, Threat Research, Trojans | Leave a Comment

Spamvertised ‘You have 1 lost message on Facebook’ campaign leads to pharmaceutical scams

February 2, 2012 – 3:53 pm

By Dancho Danchev A currently spamvertised spam campaign is redirecting users to pharmaceutical scams, in an attempt to trick them into purchasing counterfeit pharmaceutical items. More details:

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)
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