Week 09: Malware

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mcafees-own-anti-hacking-service-exposed-users-to-banking-malware/

McAfee’s own anti-hacking service exposed users to banking malware

This article talks about the following: McAfee, one of the largest security companies that builds protection software, failed to successfully implement anti-hacking service. The company’s own network sent malware to consumers and ultimately it had to block the malware being sent from the company’s own network. Consumers who would have opened word documents, would have been attacked by Emotet banking malware

It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the future. This is a bizarre incident as the company that supplies its antivirus and security solutions globally itself was generating malware for its customers. Will the users are already using McAfee services be impacted with this? How can the company protect its shipments from this malware already being pre-installed?

https://www.scmagazineuk.com/new-ursnif-variants-silently-targets-banks-and-employ-redirection-attacks/article/710504/

New Ursnif variants silently targets banks and employ redirection attacks

This article talks about the following: The recent attacks on Australian banks has alarmed consumers and this has been attributed to New Ursnif that is using redirection attacks and malicious TLS callback techniques to achieve process injection. It does it by establishing a genuine connection with the bank as if it’s a legitimate connection and then gradually use web injections to steal the login credentials.

It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the future. While banks in Australia are known to be highly sophisticated in their cyber systems, such threats have sparked a new debate. How can banks even know about new types of threats that are coming in? If legitimacy is what attackers are playing with, how can bank employees be trained of new ways of threat and denying any service to packets from such systems?

http://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/ransomware-malware-attack-2018-hackers-machine-learning/story/265049.html

Ransomware, malware attacks to continue in 2018 as hackers advance to machine learning, analytics

This article talks about the following: Despite new standards in security and advanced sophistication in server security, the first half of the year saw more than 27,000 cyber security attacks. The incidents of online ransomware have grown and the recent incident of WPP is a cause of concern. It is said that these attackers are becoming smarter each day with the advancement in Machine Learning.

It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the future. How long can advancement in new technology remain a threat to the world? Will machine learning be a good thing for the future or bad? Will it be soon enough that specialists can develop antidotes against malware attacks using ML?

Intro-to-Ethical-Hacking-Week-9