Webroot’s Threat Blog Most Popular Posts for 2012


By Dancho Danchev

It’s that time of the year! The moment when we look back, and reflect on Webroot’s Threat Blog most popular content for 2012.

Which are this year’s most popular posts? What distinguished them from the rest of the analyses published on a daily basis, throughout the entire year?

Let’s find out.

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How malware authors evade antivirus detection


By Dancho Danchev

Aiming to ensure that their malware doesn’t end up in the hands of vendors and researchers, cybercriminals are actively experimenting with different quality assurance processes whose objective is to increase the probability of their campaigns successfully propagating in the wild without detection.

Some of these techniques include multiple offline antivirus scanning interfaces offering the cybercriminal a guarantee that their malicious program would remain undetected, before they launch their malicious campaign in the wild.

In the wild since 2006, Kim’s Multiple Antivirus Scanner is still actively used among cybercriminals wanting to ensure that their malicious software is pre-scanned against the signature-based scanning techniques offered by multile antivirus vendors.

Let’s review Kim’s Multiple Antivirus Scanner, and discuss when it’s an important tool in the arsenal of the malicious cybercriminal spreading malware for profit.

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Chinese Android Trojan Texts Premium Numbers


By Andrew Brandt and Armando Orozco

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A Trojaned application that displays a cutesy image of a 2011 calendar on an Android device’s desktop comes with a nasty surprise: The app sends text messages to a premium service that charges the phone’s owner money.

As first reported by the Taiwan-based AegisLab, a single developer, which went by the name zsone, published the apps to Google’s Android Market. All apps from that developer were pulled from the Market today by Google, though only some of them appeared to contain the undesirable code.

We took a closer look at one of the apps, called iCalendar, that AegisLab was kind enough to share with us, and it didn’t take long to find the malicious code inside. Fortunately for most non-Chinese Android users, the premium numbers reportedly only work within China. We’re still testing to make sure that’s correct.

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