Citibank ‘Merchant Billing Statement’ themed emails lead to malware


By Dancho Danchev

Over the past 24 hours, we’ve intercepted yet another spam campaign impersonating Citibank in an attempt to socially engineer Citibank customers into thinking that they’ve received a Merchant Billing Statement. Once users execute the malicious attachment found in the fake emails, their PCs automatically join the botnet operated by the cybercriminal/cybercriminals.

More details:

Continue reading

New IRC/HTTP based DDoS bot wipes out competing malware


By Dancho Danchev

Everyday, new vendors offering malicious software enter the underground marketplace. And although many will fail to differentiate their underground market proposition in market crowded with reputable, trusted and verified sellers, others will quickly build their reputation on the basis of their “innovative” work, potentially stealing some market share and becoming rich by offering the tools necessary to facilitate cybercrime.

Publicly announced in late 2012, the IRC/HTTP based DDoS bot that I’ll profile in this post has been under constant development. From its initial IRC-based version, the bot has evolved into a HTTP-based one, supporting 10 different DDoS attack techniques as well as possessing a featuring allowing it to heuristically and proactively remove competing malware on the affected hosts, such as, for instance, ZeuS, Citadel or SpyEye.

More details:

Continue reading

DDoS for hire services offering to ‘take down your competitor’s web sites’ going mainstream


By Dancho Danchev

Thanks to the increasing availability of custom coded DDoS modules within popular malware and crimeware releases, opportunistic cybercriminals are easily developing managed DDoS for hire, also known as “rent a botnet” services, next to orchestrating largely under-reported DDoS extortion campaigns against financial institutions and online gambling web sites.

In this post, I’ll profile a managed DDoS for hire service, offering to “take down your competitor’s web sites offline in a cost-effective manner”.

More details:

Continue reading

Spamvertised ‘Termination of your CPA license’ campaign serving client-side exploits


By Dancho Danchev

Cybercriminals are currently spamvertising ‘Termination of your CPA license‘ emails, enticing users into clicking on a malicious link supposedly redirecting to the complaint.pdf file.

More details:

Continue reading