SBN

12th March 2018 resources updates

Specific Ransomware Families and Types

Ransomware Resources

Cryptocurrency/Crypto-mining News and Resources

Bleeping Computer tells us: Microsoft Stops Malware Campaign That Tried to Infect 400,000 Users in 12 Hours
ZDNet is even more enthusiastic: Windows security: Microsoft fights massive cryptocoin miner malware outbreak – “Microsoft has blocked a malware outbreak that could have earned big bucks for one criminal group.”
Other players in the security industry were more restrained (as per the entry for March 8th below), notably myself, Sean Sullivan and Luis Corrons, quoted in an article by Kevin Townsend: Microsoft Detects Massive Dofoil Attack. Kevin didn’t quote me in full, so here’s (most of) what I said:

I don’t read that article as actually saying that Defender detected that particular campaign and no-one else did/does (which isn’t the case: note that some of the hashes in the figures show a VirusTotal score), or claiming that Microsoft actually disrupted the campaign, or even that it was the first product to detect this particular iteration of Dofoil or the Coinminer it’s delivering. If there’s a suggestion that detection by other products was tested, I missed it.

If it gives the impression that this detection ‘proves’ that all such attacks will be detected by Defender, well, that’s what AV products (often) do, but the phrase ‘hostage to fortune’ springs to mind. But the way I read it, Windows Defender did a good job of detecting this particular campaign, and deserve credit for it. As does any company that offers prompt/proactive detection of a sophisticated campaign, and there are several that do.

Do the Defender team have an unfair advantage? Well, I guess they have direct access to the OS developers, but spotting behavioural anomalies is bread-and-butter lab work, and incorporating such detection into cloud protection and machine learning is standard stuff. And I’m sure most labs value good knowledge of OS processes.

David Harley

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from The AVIEN Blog authored by DHarley. Read the original post at: https://avien.net/blog/12th-march-2018-resources-updates/