Tag Archives: Skype

DIY Skype ring flooder offered for sale

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By Dancho Danchev

Thanks to the ease of generating a botnet, in 2013, stolen accounting data on a mass scale is a no longer a hot underground item, it’s a commodity, one that’s being offered by virtually all participants in the cybercrime ecosystem.

What happens once a Skype account gets compromised? There are several possible scenarios. The cybercriminals that (automatically) compromised it will either use the Skype credit for their own purposes, start spreading malware to the friends/colleagues of the compromised victim, or feed the accounting data into their arsenal of tools and tactics for launching TDoS (Telephony Denial of Service) services.

In this post, I’ll profile a novice cybercriminal’s underground market proposition, consisting of a DIY Skype ring flooder+training+a small amount of credit on a Skype account available in the package, and emphasize on why this particular release will never gain any market share, compared to the sophisticated and publicly available managed services.

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Madi/Mahdi/Flashback OS X connected malware spreading through Skype

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By Dancho Danchev

Over the past few days, we intercepted a malware campaign that spreads through Skype messages, exclusively coming from malware-infected friends or colleagues. Once users click on the shortened link, they’ll be exposed to a simple file download box, with the cybercriminals behind the campaign directly linking to the malicious executable.

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Bogus Skype ‘Password successfully changed’ notifications lead to malware

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By Dancho Danchev

Skype users, beware!

Cybercriminals are currently spamvertising millions of emails impersonating Skype, in an attempt to trick Skype users that their password has been successfully changed, and that in order to view their call history and change their account settings, they would need to execute the malicious attachment found in the emails.

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Cybercriminals abuse Skype’s SMS sending feature, release DIY SMS flooders

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By Dancho Danchev

Cybercriminals are masters of abusing legitimate infrastructure for their malicious purposes. From phishing sites and Black Hole exploit kit landing URLs hosted on compromised servers, abuse of legitimate web email service providers’ trusted DKIM verified ecosystem, to the systematic release of DIY spamming tools utilizing a publicly obtainable database of user names as potential “touch points”, cybercriminals are on the top of their game.

In this post, I’ll profile a recently advertised DIY SMS flooder using Skype’s infrastructure for disseminating the messages, and assess the potential impact it could have on end and corporate users.

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Russian spammers release Skype spamming tool

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By Dancho Danchev

Taking advantage of DIY spamming tools and harvested databases of user names, cybercriminals have been systematically abusing multiple instant messaging services in an attempt to trick as many users as possible into interacting with their malicious campaign.

In this post, I’ll profile a newly released DIY Skype spamming tool, discuss its main features, and whether or not it can lead to an increase in the overall spam levels affecting Microsoft’s Skype.

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Poison Ivy trojan spreading across Skype

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By Dancho Danchev

Last night, a friend of mine surprisingly messaged me at 6:33 AM on Skype, with a message pointing to what appeared to be a photo site with the message “hahahahaha foto” and a link to hxxp://random_subdomain.photalbum.org

What was particularly interesting is that he created a group, and was basically sending the same message to all of his contacts. Needless to say, the time has come for me to take a deeper look, and analyze what appeared to be a newly launched malware campaign using Skype as propagation vector.

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