Microsoft anti-malware products and utilities include detection signatures for many individual bot families, and the number continues to grow as malware creators pursue efforts to evade detection and create more effective botnets.
Microsoft desktop anti-malware products removed bots from 6.5 million computers around the world in 2Q10. The following link show the top 25 Bot Families.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/story/default.aspx#section_3_1
Friday, October 29, 2010
Most Active Botnet Families in 2Q10
Microsoft anti-malware products and utilities include detection signatures for many individual bot families, and the number continues to grow as malware creators pursue efforts to evade detection and create more effective botnets.
Microsoft desktop anti-malware products removed bots from 6.5 million computers around the world in 2Q10. The following link shows the top 25 Bot Families.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/story/default.aspx#section_3_1
Microsoft desktop anti-malware products removed bots from 6.5 million computers around the world in 2Q10. The following link shows the top 25 Bot Families.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/story/default.aspx#section_3_1
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Dirty Tricks and Larceny!
[Editor's Note: (Wyman) This month we present an overview of why and how the Bad Guys do it, what it's called, and what you can do to protect your computer.]
Blackhats. Hackers who use their skills for explicitly criminal or other malicious ends, such as writing malware (malicious software) to steal credit card numbers and banking data or by phishing; a.k.a. the Bad Guys.
Phishing. The practice of sending out fake email messages that look as if they come from a trusted person or institution-usually a bank-in order to trick people into handing over confidential information. The emails often direct you to a website that looks like that of the real financial institution. But it is a fake and has been rigged to collect your personal information, such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers, and transmit them to the Bad Guys.
Man-in-the-middle. An attack in which a criminal hacker intercepts information sent between your computer and the website of your financial institution and then uses that information to impersonate you in cyberspace. The hacker is able to defeat even very sophisticated security measures and gain access to your account.
Botnet. Botnets consist of large numbers of hijacked computers that are under the remote control of a criminal or a criminal organization. The hijacked computers-a.k.a. "zombies" or "bots" (short for "robots") -are recruited using viruses spread by email or drive-by downloads. Worms are used to find and recruit additional computers. The biggest botnets consist of thousands and even millions of computers, most often unprotected home computers.
Virus. A malicious program that usually requires some action on the part of a user in order to infect a computer; for example, opening an infected attachment or clicking on a link in a rigged email may trigger a virus to infect your computer.
Drive-by Download. A kind of malware that installs itself automatically when you visit a booby-trapped website. Symptoms of a drive-by download
include: your homepage has been changed, unwanted toolbars have been added, and unfamiliar bookmarks appear in your browser.
Worm. Self-replicating malware that, for instance, hunts down unprotected computers and recruits them for criminal or other malicious purposes. Unlike a virus, worms do not require any action on your part in order to infect your computer.
Fake Anti-Virus. Fake anti-virus software purports to be a helpful program than can find and remove malware, but in fact it is malware--the very thing that it's supposed to eliminate. After taking over your computer, it pretends to do security scans, tells you it has found malware, and then asks you to pay to have the non-existent malware removed. Whether or not you pay, fake anti-virus is likely to install more malware.
Whitehats. Hackers who use their skills for positive ends, and often for thwarting blackhats. Many whitehats are security professionals who spend their time identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in software that blackhats seek to exploit for criminal or other malicious purposes.
Security suite. A set of software applications designed to protect your computer that consists of anti-virus, anti-malware and a personal firewall.
Anti-virus and anti-malware. Helpful software applications that scan your computer for certain patterns of infection. The patterns they scan for are the signatures, or definitions, of known forms of malware. Since Bad Guys are creating new forms of malware continuously, it is important that you keep your anti-virus and anti-malware definitions updated.
Personal firewall. Software that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on your computer and checks for suspicious patterns indicating the presence of malware or other malicious activity. A personal firewall alerts you to these threats and attempts to block them. Like anti-virus and anti-malware software, personal firewalls require frequent updates to provide effective protection.
Updates. Security software relies on frequent updates in order to be able to counteract previously undetected forms of malware. Consequently, your computer may suffer a "window of vulnerability" between the time a new form of malware is identified and the time when your security software can block it or remove the infection. Set your security software to update automatically.
Patches. Operating systems, like Windows and OS X, and software applications, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, may be found to contain security flaws or holes that make your computer vulnerable to attack. Their makers release patches to plug the holes. The fastest and surest way to get these installed quickly is to use auto-updating via the Internet. Some software applications require manual updating.
Black Tuesday a.k.a. Patch Tuesday. On the second Tuesday of each month Microsoft releases security patches for Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and its other software products. You can have these installed automatically using Microsoft Update.
Auto-updating. A software tool built into Windows ("Microsoft Update") and OS X ("Auto Update") and many other applications which can download and install important security updates and patches for software installed on your computer automatically.
Blackhats. Hackers who use their skills for explicitly criminal or other malicious ends, such as writing malware (malicious software) to steal credit card numbers and banking data or by phishing; a.k.a. the Bad Guys.
Phishing. The practice of sending out fake email messages that look as if they come from a trusted person or institution-usually a bank-in order to trick people into handing over confidential information. The emails often direct you to a website that looks like that of the real financial institution. But it is a fake and has been rigged to collect your personal information, such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers, and transmit them to the Bad Guys.
Man-in-the-middle. An attack in which a criminal hacker intercepts information sent between your computer and the website of your financial institution and then uses that information to impersonate you in cyberspace. The hacker is able to defeat even very sophisticated security measures and gain access to your account.
Botnet. Botnets consist of large numbers of hijacked computers that are under the remote control of a criminal or a criminal organization. The hijacked computers-a.k.a. "zombies" or "bots" (short for "robots") -are recruited using viruses spread by email or drive-by downloads. Worms are used to find and recruit additional computers. The biggest botnets consist of thousands and even millions of computers, most often unprotected home computers.
Virus. A malicious program that usually requires some action on the part of a user in order to infect a computer; for example, opening an infected attachment or clicking on a link in a rigged email may trigger a virus to infect your computer.
Drive-by Download. A kind of malware that installs itself automatically when you visit a booby-trapped website. Symptoms of a drive-by download
include: your homepage has been changed, unwanted toolbars have been added, and unfamiliar bookmarks appear in your browser.
Worm. Self-replicating malware that, for instance, hunts down unprotected computers and recruits them for criminal or other malicious purposes. Unlike a virus, worms do not require any action on your part in order to infect your computer.
Fake Anti-Virus. Fake anti-virus software purports to be a helpful program than can find and remove malware, but in fact it is malware--the very thing that it's supposed to eliminate. After taking over your computer, it pretends to do security scans, tells you it has found malware, and then asks you to pay to have the non-existent malware removed. Whether or not you pay, fake anti-virus is likely to install more malware.
Whitehats. Hackers who use their skills for positive ends, and often for thwarting blackhats. Many whitehats are security professionals who spend their time identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in software that blackhats seek to exploit for criminal or other malicious purposes.
Security suite. A set of software applications designed to protect your computer that consists of anti-virus, anti-malware and a personal firewall.
Anti-virus and anti-malware. Helpful software applications that scan your computer for certain patterns of infection. The patterns they scan for are the signatures, or definitions, of known forms of malware. Since Bad Guys are creating new forms of malware continuously, it is important that you keep your anti-virus and anti-malware definitions updated.
Personal firewall. Software that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on your computer and checks for suspicious patterns indicating the presence of malware or other malicious activity. A personal firewall alerts you to these threats and attempts to block them. Like anti-virus and anti-malware software, personal firewalls require frequent updates to provide effective protection.
Updates. Security software relies on frequent updates in order to be able to counteract previously undetected forms of malware. Consequently, your computer may suffer a "window of vulnerability" between the time a new form of malware is identified and the time when your security software can block it or remove the infection. Set your security software to update automatically.
Patches. Operating systems, like Windows and OS X, and software applications, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, may be found to contain security flaws or holes that make your computer vulnerable to attack. Their makers release patches to plug the holes. The fastest and surest way to get these installed quickly is to use auto-updating via the Internet. Some software applications require manual updating.
Black Tuesday a.k.a. Patch Tuesday. On the second Tuesday of each month Microsoft releases security patches for Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and its other software products. You can have these installed automatically using Microsoft Update.
Auto-updating. A software tool built into Windows ("Microsoft Update") and OS X ("Auto Update") and many other applications which can download and install important security updates and patches for software installed on your computer automatically.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Featured Intelligence – Battling Botnets
What is a Botnet?
Botnets Today
The botnet world is divided between bot families that are closely controlled by individual groups of attackers and bot families that are produced by malware kits. These kits are collections of tools, sold and shared within the malware underground, that enable aspiring bot-herders to assemble their own botnet by creating and spreading customized malware variants. Several malware kits are freely available for downloading and sharing; some have been published as open source code, which enables malware developers to create modified versions of the kits. Other kits are developed by individual groups and sold like legitimate commercial software products, sometimes even including support agreements. For example, variants in the Win32/Zbot family are built from a commercial malware kit called Zeus; Win32/Pushbot bots are built from a kit called Reptile.The existence of botnet malware kits is one of the reasons why it is difficult for security researchers to estimate the number and size of botnets currently in operation. Detections of malware samples from a family like Zbot, for example, do not necessarily represent a single large botnet controlled by one individual or group, but instead may indicate an unknown number of unrelated botnets controlled by different people, some of which might encompass just a handful of controlled computers.
Bot operators use several tactics to attack organizations, companies, and individuals in an effort to achieve their goals. Botnets typically exhibit a variety of behaviors based on the purpose of the attacks and the tools used to establish them. Being aware of and understanding the different attacking mechanisms can help IT and security professionals gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the botnet, the purpose behind it, and sometimes even the origin of the attack.
Bots, like other kinds of malware, can be spread in a number of different ways. Three common ways that computers are successfully compromised involve the following tactics:
•Exploiting weak or non-existent security policies.
•Exploiting security vulnerabilities.
•Using social engineering tactics to manipulate people into installing malware.
Some bots are designed to spread using these techniques directly, as worms; security researchers analyze the behavior of these self-replicating bots to learn more about how they spread. Other bots don’t spread themselves directly, and are delivered by other malware families as payloads.
Many attackers and types of malware attempt to exploit weak or non-existent security policies. The most common examples of such exploits are attackers taking advantage of weak passwords and/or unprotected file shares. A threat that gains control of a user’s account credentials could perform all of the actions the user is allowed to perform, which could include accessing or modifying resources as a local or domain administrator.
Other types of malware attempt to exploit security vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. This type of attack is more successful on older operating systems than on newer systems that are designed with security as a core requirement. An analysis of infections reported by the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) during the second quarter of 2010 (2Q10) reveals that infection rates for computers around the world are significantly lower on newer versions of the Windows operating system than on older versions.
Botnets Today
The botnet world is divided between bot families that are closely controlled by individual groups of attackers and bot families that are produced by malware kits. These kits are collections of tools, sold and shared within the malware underground, that enable aspiring bot-herders to assemble their own botnet by creating and spreading customized malware variants. Several malware kits are freely available for downloading and sharing; some have been published as open source code, which enables malware developers to create modified versions of the kits. Other kits are developed by individual groups and sold like legitimate commercial software products, sometimes even including support agreements. For example, variants in the Win32/Zbot family are built from a commercial malware kit called Zeus; Win32/Pushbot bots are built from a kit called Reptile.The existence of botnet malware kits is one of the reasons why it is difficult for security researchers to estimate the number and size of botnets currently in operation. Detections of malware samples from a family like Zbot, for example, do not necessarily represent a single large botnet controlled by one individual or group, but instead may indicate an unknown number of unrelated botnets controlled by different people, some of which might encompass just a handful of controlled computers.
Bot operators use several tactics to attack organizations, companies, and individuals in an effort to achieve their goals. Botnets typically exhibit a variety of behaviors based on the purpose of the attacks and the tools used to establish them. Being aware of and understanding the different attacking mechanisms can help IT and security professionals gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the botnet, the purpose behind it, and sometimes even the origin of the attack.
Bots, like other kinds of malware, can be spread in a number of different ways. Three common ways that computers are successfully compromised involve the following tactics:
•Exploiting weak or non-existent security policies.
•Exploiting security vulnerabilities.
•Using social engineering tactics to manipulate people into installing malware.
Some bots are designed to spread using these techniques directly, as worms; security researchers analyze the behavior of these self-replicating bots to learn more about how they spread. Other bots don’t spread themselves directly, and are delivered by other malware families as payloads.
Many attackers and types of malware attempt to exploit weak or non-existent security policies. The most common examples of such exploits are attackers taking advantage of weak passwords and/or unprotected file shares. A threat that gains control of a user’s account credentials could perform all of the actions the user is allowed to perform, which could include accessing or modifying resources as a local or domain administrator.
Other types of malware attempt to exploit security vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. This type of attack is more successful on older operating systems than on newer systems that are designed with security as a core requirement. An analysis of infections reported by the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) during the second quarter of 2010 (2Q10) reveals that infection rates for computers around the world are significantly lower on newer versions of the Windows operating system than on older versions.
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