Malware

Dennis Fisher talks with Costin Raiu and Ryan Naraine about the newly uncovered Red October cyberespionage campaign that has targeted embassies, diplomats, research facilities and military targets for more than five years now. Raiu explains the origins of the campaign, where the attackers likely are located, the complexity and scale of the malware tools involved and what other components might be lurking undiscovered out there.

There is a new version of the Shylock malware that is now capable of spreading through Skype. The new version is spreading mainly in the U.K., Europe and the U.S. and is playing off the fact that Microsoft is about to kill its Messenger application in favor of Skype.

In an analysis of Virut botnet samples, Symantec researchers observed the malware downloading Waledac variants, suggesting that the gangs responsible for each botnet may be cooperating with one another through some sort of affiliate program, or, at the very least, that the two threats coexist and function on single infected machines.

UPDATE Up to a million Android users in China could be part of a large mobile botnet according to research unveiled by Kingsoft Security, a Hong Kong-based security company, this week.

Red October, the espionage campaign uncovered by Kaspersky Lab this week after attackers spent five years actively spying on diplomats, scientists, and governments worldwide, is using a Java exploit to infect its victims, bringing the exploit count to four in this campaign.

Oracle’s emergency Java update this weekend for a zero-day sandbox bypass vulnerability hasn’t exactly kicked off a love-fest for the company among security experts. Researchers are still cautious about recommending users re-enable the ubiquitous software, despite the availability of the fix for the latest zero-day to target the platform. 

For five years, it hid in the weeds of networks used by Eastern European diplomats, government employees and scientific research organizations, stealing data and infecting more machines in an espionage campaign rivaling Flame and others of its ilk. The campaign, called Rocra or Red October by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, focused not only on workstations, but mobile devices and networking gear to gain a foothold inside strategic organizations. Once inside, attackers pivoted internally and stole everything from files on desktops, smartphones and FTP servers, to email databases using exploits developed in China and Russian malware, Kaspersky researchers said.