MALWARE PATROL BLOG
Cyber News, Configuration Guides, Research and More
#onpatrol4malware Blog
In the Malware Patrol blog, you will find the latest infosec news, configuration guides, and cybersecurity industry information.
InfoSec Articles (01/04/2022 – 01/17/2022)
Over the past two weeks, we saw the operators of the SFile ransomware (aka Escal) have developed a Linux version of their malware to expand their operations. SFile ransomware (aka Escal), has been active...
InfoSec Articles (12/21/2021 – 01-04-2022)
Over the past two weeks, we saw that AvosLocker is a relatively new ransomware-as-a-service. The Sophos Rapid Response team has so far seen AvosLocker attacks in the Americas, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific,...
InfoSec Articles (12/07/2021 – 12/20/2021)
Over the last two weeks, we saw the ten families of malicious samples are spreading using the Log4j2 vulnerability Now. NetLab published a blog disclosing Mirai and Muhstik botnet samples propagating through...
InfoSec Articles (11/23/2021 – 12/06/2021)
Over the last 2 weeks we saw A new parasitic malware targets the popular Nginx web server, Sansec discovered. This novel code injects itself into a host Nginx application and is nearly invisible. Sansec also...
InfoSec Articles (11/8/2021 – 11/22/2021)
Over the past 2 weeks, we observed a QAKBOT operators resumed email spam operations towards the end of September after an almost three-month hiatus. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) email servers...
Avoiding Black Friday Phishing Scam
Black Friday is coming and threat actors are already surfing this wave of retail insanity. Not surprisingly, phishing remains an effective way to lure users into handing over their bank...
MISP Configuration Guide
MISP is a threat intelligence platform for gathering, sharing, storing, and correlating indicators of compromise of targeted attacks, threat intelligence, financial fraud information, and...
Fortinet Configuration Guide
FortiGate NGFWs deliver industry-leading enterprise security for any edge at any scale with full visibility and threat protection. Organizations can weave security deep into the hybrid IT architecture and...
InfoSec Articles (10/26/2021 – 11/8/2021)
Over the last two weeks, we observed a new threat referred to as “SQUIRRELWAFFLE” is being spread more widely via spam campaigns, infecting systems with a new malware loader. In addition, Black Friday, one of...
InfoSec Articles (10/12/21 – 10/25/2021)
Over the past two weeks, we saw New PurpleFox botnet variant uses WebSockets for C2 communication. In addition, since July 2021, malicious cyber actors have used BlackMatter ransomware to target multiple U.S....
Mikrotik Configuration Guide
Malware Patrol provides a Mikrotik-compatible version of our Enterprise Malicious IPs and Malicious Domains data feeds."MikroTik is a Latvian company founded in 1996 to develop routers and...
What is Ransomware?
Malware Patrol's CEO Andre Correa was recently interviewed by Dana Mantilia from Identity Protection Planning. They discussed the basics - and more - about ransomware:What is Ransomware?What should a company...
InfoSec Articles (9/28/21 – 10/11/21)
Malware patrol selected some relevant cybersecurity news over the past 2 weeks. A survey of cyber investigators and antiabuse service providers to understand how ICANN’s application of the European Union’s...
InfoSec Articles (09/13/21 – 9/27/21)
In the past 2 weeks, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) alerting organizations of increased Conti...
InfoSec Articles (08/30/21 – 09/13/21)
In the first 2 weeks of September, we saw the LockFile is a new ransomware family that emerged in July 2021 following the discovery in April 2021 of the ProxyShell vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange...
InfoSec Articles (08/16/21 – 08/30/21)
In the last 2 weeks of August, we saw campaigns use a multitude of infection components to deliver two widely popular commodity malware and remote access trojans (RATs): njRAT and AsyncRAT. Also, campaigns...
Best Practices to Protect Against Ransomware
Everyone wants to know how to protect against ransomware - 2021 is the year of ransomware! The Colonial Pipeline attack shutdown a major oil distribution line and held it for ransom. Kaseya, a software...
InfoSec Articles (08/02/21 – 08/16/21)
In this first half of August, we saw that during Cyble’s routine Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) research, we came across a malware posted by a researcher on Twitter. Also, a new Android trojan, dubbed...
InfoSec Articles (07/19/21 – 08/02/21)
Over the past two weeks, we saw that the Government sanctioned cyber-surveillance is back in the news, following an exposé that reveals how commercial malware is being used by authoritarian regimes used to...
Malware Patrol Data Offered in Bandura Threat Intel Marketplace
Press Release St. Petersburg, FL, July 28, 2021 -- Malware Patrol, the veteran threat intelligence company, announced today that they now offer data feeds through the Bandura Cyber...
InfoSec Articles (07/05/21 – 07/19/21)
Over the past 2 weeks, we saw Threat actors behind the infamous TrickBot malware have been linked to a new ransomware strain named “Diavol,”. Also, a new malware that targets online gambling companies in...
InfoSec Articles (06/21/21 – 07/05/21)
Malware patrol selected some relevant news over the past 2 weeks. Microsoft has confirmed signing a malicious driver being distributed within gaming environments. “Netfilter,” a rootkit that was observed...
InfoSec Articles (06/07/21 – 06/21/21)
In the last two weeks of June, we saw the Japanese multinational conglomerate Fujifilm said it has refused to pay a ransom demand to the cyber gang that attacked its network in Japan. “Fujifilm Corporation in...
Three Types of Cyber Threat Intelligence
Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is one of the main pillars of cybersecurity strategies. Although it is not the answer to all cybersecurity problems, it is a very important tool for incident prevention,...
InfoSec Articles (05/24/21 – 06/07/21)
At the end of March and beginning of June, we saw the Evolution of the JSWorm ransomware, the ransomware threat landscape has been gradually changing. We have been witness to a paradigm shift. Also, the...
InfoSec Articles (05/10/21 – 05/24/21)
In the past two weeks of May, we noticed that the whole world is susceptible to cyber-attacks and even banks. Bizarro is another family of banking Trojans originating in Brazil that is now found in other...
InfoSec Articles (04/26/21 – 05/10/21)
At the end of April and the first week of March, we realized that cyberattacks do not rest, recently the Cybereason Nocturnus team responded to several incident response (IR) cases involving Prometei Botnet...
InfoSec Articles (04/12/21 – 04/26/21)
In the second half of April, we noticed a growing wave of cyber attacks Microsoft threat analysts have been tracking activity where contact forms published on websites are abused to deliver malicious...
InfoSec Articles (03/29/21 – 04/12/21)
In this first half of April, we noticed that cyber threats are spreading all over the world and involve major investigations. This new threat, which we’ve named Janeleiro, attempts to deceive its victims with...
InfoSec Articles (03/15/21 – 03/29/21)
In this second half of March, we observed an interesting email campaign by a threat actor we track as TA800. They distributed a new malware we are calling NimzaLoader. Also, another ransomware gang has...
InfoSec Articles (03/01/21 – 03/15/21)
In the first half of March, we recently observed a new series of Microsoft-themed phishing attacks. Also, with ransomware becoming the most significant cybersecurity threat faced by organizations, we found a...
InfoSec Articles (02/15/21 – 03/01/21)
In the last two weeks' worth of infosec articles, we saw a lot of writing about APT activities and even a phishing attack method that uses Morse code to disguise malicious URLs. The Lookout article about the...
InfoSec Articles (01/31/21 – 02/14/21)
Onto the 2nd month of 2021, and we have seen supply-chain attacks, phishing campaigns, botnets, and ransomware such as the HelloKitty ransomware. CD Project disclosed that they were the target of HelloKitty...
InfoSec Articles (01/16/21 – 01/30/21)
On to the end of January and we're seeing banking malware such as Vadokrist and many others. Vadokrist is written in Delphi and has an unusually large amount of unused code in the binaries. It is believed...
InfoSec Articles (01/01/21 – 01/15/21)
On to a new year, but it's still good to review some malware such as APT37 to help us understand more about cybercrimes. APT37 is associated with an attack that embeds macro that uses a VBA self decoding...
InfoSec Articles (12/17/20 – 12/31/20)
On to the last day of the controversial year, cybercrime is still rife, as the attack activities of the Quasar Family. Quasar is an open-source RAT with a variety of functions. This is easy to use and...
InfoSec Articles (12/02/20 – 12/16/20)
A week before Christmas, cryptocurrency mining botnet PGMiner is showing smarter ways to hack into a victim's machine. At its core, PGMiner attempts to connect to the mining pool for Monero mining. Learn more...
InfoSec Articles (11/17/20 – 12/01/20)
On to the start of the last month of the year and just around Thanksgiving, cyber crimes are still rampant. Even GoDaddy was also a victim of a scam using voice phishing or vishing. The scam shows how vishing...
InfoSec Articles (11/02/20 – 11/16/20)
Several cases were observed where DLL side-loading was used to execute the malicious code. Side-loading is the use of a malicious DLL spoofing a legitimate one, relying on legitimate Windows executables....
Threat Intelligence Data Providers vs Threat Intelligence Platforms
In information security, the ability to predict and adapt to the behaviors of criminals can help organizations improve defense strategies against cyber threats. This can be done through the use of threat...
InfoSec Articles (10/18/20 – 11/01/20)
Upon entering the second to the last month of the year, there are a lot of botnets, banking malware, and malware making the news. But one that stands out is Kimsuky. Kimsuky uses various spearphishing and...
InfoSec Articles (10/03/20 – 10/17/20)
There has been a lot of RATs as well as botnets lately, such as HEH. HEH Botnet is spreading through brute force of the Telnet service on ports 23/2323. The bot does not really care of what the end devices...
InfoSec Articles (09/18/20 – 10/02/20)
One of the common malware being reported nowadays is the Remote Access Trojan or RAT, such as the LodaRAT. Written in Autolt, LodaRAT not only have abandoned their usual obfuscation techniques, but several...
InfoSec Articles (09/03/20 – 09/17/20)
With almost everything being done online, cybercriminals were able to develop Baka skimmer to perform their goals. Baka skimmer has a sophisticated design intended to circumvent detection by security tools....
InfoSec Articles (08/19/20 – 09/02/20)
This batch of the most recent infosec articles from around the web, includes an evolution analysis of Transparent Tribe. In the last four years, Transparent Tribe has never taken time off. They continue to...
InfoSec Articles (08/04/20 – 08/18/20)
Lots of malware have been creating cybercrime, but the old Agent Tesla uses new tricks to be able to stay on top. The Agent Tesla RAT has become one of the most prevalent malware families, being seen in more...
InfoSec Articles (07/20/20 – 08/03/20)
We have now come into a new month, and this set of InfoSec articles discusses how some specific malware operates. One of these is the Evilnum malware which was previously seen in attacks against financial...
InfoSec Articles (07/05/20 – 07/19/20)
Onto the second half of 2020, and a lot of trojans are actively upping their game to spread banking malware. One of these is Trojan Cerberus which disguised itself as a genuine app in order to access the...
InfoSec Articles (06/20/20 – 07/04/20)
The latter half of the year has already begun, and cybercrimes show no signs of stopping. Just like how they're using Cobalt Strike to deploy Anchor backdoor and RYUK ransomware. Be vigilant and learn more...
InfoSec Articles (06/05/20 – 06/19/20)
Ransomware and malware, such as GuLoader, have been very active in campaigns against security. GuLoader is used to deliver malware with the help of cloud services such as Google Drive. The delivery of malware...
InfoSec Articles (05/21/20 – 06/04/20)
Half of 2020 is here and malware such as Mylobot, ComRAT, and the likes have also upgraded their game. Mylobot has the ability to download and execute any type of payload after it infects a host. Learn more...
InfoSec Articles (05/06/20 – 05/20/20)
Ransomware has topped this InfoSec articles. One of which is the Netwalker ransomware. This involves malware that is not compiled but written in PowerShell and executed directly in memory and without storing...
InfoSec Articles (04/21/20 – 05/05/20)
Among the cybercrime known to us, EventBot seems to be a real threat among many users. EventBot is targeting financial applications and steal SMS messages to allow malware to bypass two-factor authentication....
DoH! Not so great to the Enterprise
DoH, or DNS over HTTPS (RFC 8484), is a relatively new protocol that provides increased privacy and security. It does this by encrypting DNS queries and responses, which prevents eavesdropping and...
InfoSec Articles (04/06/20 – 04/20/20)
xHelper, together with other malware and threat attacks, have added to the concerns of Android users. Read about this threat and more in the latest security industry news below. For more articles, check out...
InfoSec Articles (03/22/20 – 04/05/20)
Cyber attacks, phishing, stalkerware, and malware such as Emissary Panda, have been rampant. They're taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in organizations and even governments. Keep reading to find out...
InfoSec Articles (03/07/20 – 03/21/20)
A lot of info stealer, malware campaigns, and scams have taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus has posts threat not only in the physical world, but also in the digital world. For more...
Newly Registered Domains Related to COVID-19
The current outbreak of the COVID-19 created a perfect scenario for all sorts of scammers to monetize through fear, false promises and fraud. Since the beginning of March, tens of thousands of new...
InfoSec Articles (02/21/20 – 03/06/20)
Infodemic is happening now to our world. The leverage of the current physical threat, the CoronaVirus, is being used as a social engineering trick to infect the cyber world. Be informed and read on these...
InfoSec Articles (02/06/20 – 02/20/20)
The industry saw lot of phishing and smishing in the second month of 2020. Most of this was related to the coronavirus epidemic. Read some of the most interesting and useful infosec articles from early...
InfoSec Articles (01/22/20 – 02/05/20)
Entering into the second month of the year, there's more information about the various groups that are using the Golden Chicken Malware-as-a-Service. In addition, there's a lot of malware now in action to get...
Why Commercial Threat Intelligence Beats OSINT
Picture this: you’re in need of a new suit. You see that your favorite store is giving away designer suits for free and the pictures look fantastic. But digging into the details reveals that they’re only...
InfoSec Articles (01/07/20 – 01/21/20)
Articles from the last couple of weeks reveal news about cyber threats targeting the electric utility industry and hackers boring into the gas company industry. And with the events in and around Iran, there...
Threat Intelligence: Essential For Your Cyber Defenses
Cyber risk is growing while confidence in internal defense resilience declining. According to Microsoft’s 2019 Global Cyber Risk Perception Survey, cyber security is a top 5 business concern for 79% of...
InfoSec Articles (12/23/19 – 01/06/20)
Off to an active start in 2020, threat groups are being quite agressive. Read articles about their attacks and several others in our industry article picks for the first of the year. For more articles, check...
InfoSec Articles (12/08/19 – 12/22/19)
Just a few weeks into the holiday season and Ryuk ransomware, among others, are making the news. Read articles about this menace and several others in our picks from the industry. For more articles, check out...
Infosec Articles (11/23/19 – 12/07/19)
Even with low usage rates, new exploit kits have been found targeting Internet Explorer, says Malwarebytes in their fall report. Secure List's article about Q3 spam and phishing highlight Amazon...
Infosec Articles (11/8/19 – 11/22/19)
Ransomware takes the spotlight this time showing up targeting Windows users, production servers and, specifically, drives commonly associated with removable devices and mapped network drives. For more...
Infosec Articles (10/24/19 – 11/7/19)
Android malware and adware, along with mobile espionage made headlines during the last two weeks. No shortage of variety in malicious behavior, there are also articles about some RATs and APTs with current...
Infosec Articles (10/9/19 – 10/23/19)
There's a new Mirai variant and, big surprise, Android applications are taking more permissions than they are granted. For Linux users, there's a new ransomware family targeting Linux-based Network Attached...
Infosec Articles (9/24/19 – 10/8/19)
Our selection of the most recent infosec articles from around the web, including write ups about both the Masad and Arcane stealer, all accompanied by a possible link between Magecart Group 4 and Cobalt...
Infosec Articles (9/9/19 – 9/23/19)
Read our hand-picked selection of the latest security articles in which botnets and RATs make frequent appearances. Despite the changes in the industry earlier this year when Coinhive closed shop,...
Infosec Articles (8/25/19 – 9/8/19)
Read some of the most interesting and useful infosec articles from the last two weeks, in particular a couple about the newcomer Nemty ransomware. The NCSC published a reminder / warning about the upcoming...
MineMeld Configuration Guide
Palo Alto MineMeld is an extensible Threat Intelligence processing framework and the multi-tool of threat indicator feeds. MineMeld can be used to collect, aggregate, and filter indicators from a...
Postpassword Security with FIDO2
Welcome to the dawn of the post-password world. Multifactor authentication orbits it and two-factor authentication is just a short ride away. A new adoption campaign has launched, and it’s bound for broad...
Synergistic Malware Threats
It’s easy to focus on the different kinds of malware threats. Data exfiltration, phishing, ransomware, Trojans, cryptomining and all the other threat vectors present sufficient challenges to cyber security...
Tips for Establishing Your Security Program
(And How the Cyber Insurance Industry May Help You for Free) I won’t keep you waiting. Before you get too excited about that free assist from the cyber insurance industry, let me be clear: it won’t, directly....
Whitelisting for Block Lists
Malware Patrol's #1 goal is to protect customers from malware and ransomware infections. These days, this can mean blocking mainstream domains. Consequently, our customers report potential false positives for...
Is Online Privacy the Next Phase of Globalization
Google’s first privacy fine post-GDPR sounds substantial. $57 million could certainly buy a first-class infosec infrastructure for a medium-sized company and keep many payrolls rolling out for years to come....
Phishing’s Next Wave: AI-Enabled Tactics for Attackers and Cybersecurity Pros
Cybercrime steals an estimated $600 billion from the global economy every year. In the next several years we can expect that number to reach well into the trillions. Phishing and spear phishing open most...
Phishing: The Tide Is Still Coming In
In cybersecurity the familiar is dangerous. Because of this, we must qualify what we “already know” and refresh our knowledge. Without this attention, cracks in the system grow until huge threats can fit...
Reputation Jacking: Unknown Threats on Well-Known Sites
Threat actors place malicious content on trusted sites to gain access to user’s devices and spread malware. Instead of an outside attack, they wait for the victim to download software from a trusted source or otherwise insinuate themselves into a normal operation.
Command and Control Servers: Fundamentals and a Few Details
Few topics in current cybersecurity generate as much press as command and control servers (C2s). They enable the cybercrime that often affects companies and individuals far outside the IT industry.
DNS Sinkholes Detect and Protect. Discovering What’s Inside Them Can Be the Key to Security
Bots don’t sleep, ransomware finds new ways to infiltrate systems and yesterday’s defenses may be ineffective tomorrow. Cybersecurity requires vigilance. But vigilance alone won’t suffice. That’s...
SpamAssassin Configuration Guide
Malware Patrol provides block lists compatible with SpamAssassin. "Apache SpamAssassin is the #1 Open Source anti-spam platform giving system administrators a filter to classify email and...
Why choose Malware Patrol over a free DNS protection service?
Customers and prospects have approached us recently with questions similar to this: why should we choose Malware Patrol instead of a free DNS protection service? The question is fair, especially in a market...
Accessing threat data on AWS S3 buckets
Malware Patrol provides some of its threat data feeds via Amazon / AWS S3 buckets. Among the feeds are the "Malware Samples (Binaries)" and the "Bitcoin Transactions (JSON format)". Amazon Simple...
Malware Patrol – Protection Against Crypto Mining Abuse
Cryptocurrency mining as a service is a growing website monetization trend, especially popular on gaming and torrent sites, in which a JavaScript code utilizes the visitor's CPU for cryptocurrency...
DNS RPZ Firewall Configuration Guide
BIND is the world’s most used DNS server and can be configured as a DNS Firewall using RPZ files (DNS RPZ). Response Policy Zone (RPZ) enables DNS administrators to selectively block name...
Cisco ASA FirePOWER Configuration Guide
“With Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services, you consolidate multiple security layers in a single platform, eliminating the cost of buying and managing multiple solutions. This integrated approach combines...
Spoofed DDoS Attacks and BCP 38
The majority of recent DDoS attacks utilize source address spoofing techniques. These spoofed DDos attacks complicate mitigation efforts and hide the IP address of the originating system. It...
DDoS Reflection and Amplification Attacks
Reflection and amplification are mechanisms commonly used in DDoS attacks. These simple and very effective techniques gained popularity around 2013. They take advantage of publicly accessible UDP services to...
Check Point Software and Malware Patrol Partner Up
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMalware Patrol Announces Partnership with Check Point Software TechnologiesBrazilian security company joins forces with the world’s leading internet security firm. São Paulo, Brazil –...
Popular Domains Hosting Malware
Malware Patrol has maintained a database of malicious URLs and IOCs since 2005. We often receive emails from our users about "popular" and "important" domains being present in our block lists and...
Role of DGAs in Malware and Ransomware Campaigns
The vast majority of active malware and ransomware families include some sort of communication with command and control systems (C&Cs). This connection allows them to receive their...
pfBlockerNG Configuration Guide
Malware Patrol provides block lists compatible with pfBlockerNG, a package for pfSense version 2.x that allows the usage of custom block list, IP filtering, and country block functionalities....
Comparing Protection Mechanisms
In a market full of products and services that promise to solve the most varied security threats, it is important to put solutions into perspective, understand what they really deliver and never forget that no single vendor can protect from all threats.
pfSense Configuration Guide
pfSense software is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD specifically tailored for use as a firewall and router that is entirely managed via web interface. In addition to being a powerful,...
Clam AV Software Configuration Guide
“Clam AV is an open source ant-virus engine for detecting trojans, viruses, malware & other malicious threats.” Malware Patrol provides signatures that are compatible with Clam AV software. You can follow...
Squid3 Web Proxy Configuration Guide
Squid is a proxy for the web that provides extensive access control lists, reduces bandwidth consumption and improves response times by caching and reusing frequently requested web pages. It runs on most...
BIND9 Configuration Guide
Bind is the world’s most used DNS server. Keep reading to learn how to configure Bind9 to work with Malware Patrol's data. Getting Started Malware Patrol provides a zone file compatible with Bind9. Its usage...