Category Archives: Firefox

Threats that target the Mozilla Firefox browser

Shorty Worm Spams Links, Hijacks Browsers

March 4, 2011 – 9:51 am

By Andrew Brandt & Grayson Milbourne A novel worm we’re calling Worm-IM-Shorty appears to be winding its way through Facebook and some instant messaging services, with its come-on disguised as a link to a photograph hosted elsewhere. But when recipients click the link, they receive an executable Trojan instead, dressed up with the name and [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in adware, Backdoors, Botnet activity, Downloaders, hijack search results, Internet Explorer, Search engines, social engineering, spam, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Comments (1)

10 Threats from 2010 We’d Prefer Remain History

January 1, 2011 – 3:32 pm

By Andrew Brandt With 2010 finally behind us, and an unknown number of cyberattacks likely to come in the new year, I thought I’d run down a brief list of the malicious campaigns criminals pulled off last year that I’d really dread to see anyone repeat. Now that they’re in the past, they should stay [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Backdoors, Blackhat SEO, Botnet activity, Destructive behavior, Enterprises, Gaming threats, Internet Explorer, Keyloggers, Online shopping threats, Passwords, phishing, Phishing Trojans, Rogue Security Products, social engineering, social networks, spam, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research, Trojans, Website owners | Comments (1)

Fake Firefox Update is a Social Engineering Triple Fail

December 21, 2010 – 4:49 pm

By Andrew Brandt Where’s the work ethic, malware geniuses? If this latest example of shenanigans is the best you can deliver, you’re not even trying to generate convincing scams — or even something that makes sense — anymore. One of our Threat Research Analysts pointed me to a Web page hosting a fake update program [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Blackhat SEO, Downloaders, Internet Explorer, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Comments (5)

Search Hijacker Adds Files to Firefox Profile

November 5, 2010 – 11:49 am

By Andrew Brandt In September, I posted an item about a dropper which we call Trojan-Dropper-Headshot. This malware delivers everything including the kitchen sink when it infects your system. It has an absolute ton of payloads, any of which on their own constitute a serious problem. All together, they’re a nightmare. Among the payloads, we’ve [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in hijack search results, malware, Threat Research, Trojans | Comments (2)

Patchy Phisher Forces Firefox to Forego Forgetting Passwords

October 6, 2010 – 3:47 pm

By Andrew Brandt Every browser can, at the user’s discretion, be set up to remember passwords. In general, Webroot advises most users not to set the browser to store login credentials, because they’re so easily extracted by password-stealing Trojans like Zbot. In Firefox, for example, you can click Tools, Options, then open the Security tab, [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Backdoors, Internet Explorer, Keyloggers, phishing, Phishing Trojans, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Comments (21)

Five Reasons You Should Always “Stop. Think. Connect.”

October 4, 2010 – 9:27 am

By Andrew Brandt Today’s the official kickoff for National Cyber Security Awareness Month, and the organizations supporting the event, including the National Cyber Security Alliance, the Anti-Phishing Working Group, and dozens of corporate citizens including Webroot, want you to protect your computer and your personal information. So they’ve come up with a three word campaign [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in adware, Blackhat SEO, Botnet activity, Destructive behavior, Gaming threats, Internet Explorer, Keyloggers, malware, Online shopping threats, Passwords, phishing, Rogue Security Products, Search engines, social engineering, social networks, spam, Stupid malware tricks, Trojans, Website owners | Comments (19)

Blackhat SEO of Google Images Links to Rogue AV

August 3, 2010 – 1:35 pm

By Andrew Brandt Yesterday, a few of the Threat Research folks and I had a little fun playing with a hack that had, for one day at least, pretty much decimated Google’s Image Search feature. One researcher, who stumbled into the attack purely by chance, found that a Google Images link to a map of [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Blackhat SEO, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Rogue Security Products, Safari, Search engines, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research, Trojans | Comments (11)

WoW Expansion Beta Likely to Spawn Phishers, Scams

June 30, 2010 – 4:04 pm

By Andrew Brandt Blizzard’s announcement today that they will begin a closed beta-test for the latest expansion pack is likely to generate a lot of excitement among that particularly low breed of online criminals who steal the fruits of other people’s entertainment when they commandeer passwords for other players. While it’s hard to believe that [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Gaming threats, Passwords, PC gaming, phishing, Phishing Trojans, social engineering, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Comments (7)

Play it Safe on Safer Internet Day

February 8, 2010 – 12:32 pm

By Andrew Brandt February 9 marks Safer Internet Day, and around the world, people are trying to help their fellow netizens navigate an obstacle course of threats to their security and privacy. InSafe, the organization funded by the EU that sponsors the annual youth-targeted event, has themed the day around the concept “Think B4 U [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Gaming threats, Phishing Trojans, social engineering, social networks, Stupid malware tricks | Comments (4)

Rogue AV Payload Blocks Popular Websites

January 25, 2010 – 5:16 pm

By Andrew Brandt A payload file installed along with some variants of the rogue Internet Security 2010 “antivirus” program modifies victims’ networking settings within Windows, inserting itself into the network stack and preventing victims from visiting some of the Web’s most popular Web sites. More than 40 sites have been targeted, including: Microsoft’s live.com and Bing [...]

By Lisa Bongiovanni | Also posted in Rogue Security Products, Stupid malware tricks, Threat Research | Comments (9)
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 609 other followers