DHarley

The AVIEN Blog

The content of this site has now been moved/copied to The AVIEN Portal and all new content will be added to that site only. David Harley ... Read More

This site is in the process of being transferred to the AVIEN portal here. Pages that have already been transferred now just contain a link to the corresponding page, but there’s still a lot of housekeeping to do. In the meantime, however, new blog articles will now be posted only ... Read More

Specific Ransomware Families and Types Checkpoint: The GandCrab Ransomware Mindset Kaspersky: GANDCRAB RANSOMWARE CROOKS TAKE AGILE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH Cryptocurrency/Crypto-mining News and Resources PETER KÁLNAI and MICHAL POSLUŠNÝ for ESET (posted 14th March): Dangerous malware stealing bitcoin hosted on Download.com for years McAfee: McAfee Researchers Analyze Dark Side of Cryptocurrency Craze: ... Read More

Added to the AMD section of the Meltdown/Spectre resource page, which for administrative reasons has now been moved here. [16th March 2018] Not Meltdown/Spectre, but allegedly similar issues: Richi Jennings for Tech Beacon: AMD CPU PSP holes lead to APT SNAFU, say CTS n00b AMDFlaws own Legal Disclaimer Harsh words ... Read More

(1) New section on Trend Micro Resources in Meltdown/Spectre – Related Resources Trend Micro: Detecting Attacks that Exploit Meltdown and Spectre with Performance Counters “We worked on a detection technique for attacks that exploit Meltdown and Spectre by utilizing performance counters available in Intel processors. They measure cache misses — ... Read More

Specific Ransomware Families and Types The Register: Cavalry riding to the rescue of DDOS-deluged memcached users – “Attacks tapering, as experts argue over ‘kill switch'” ESET: New DDoS attack method breaks record again, adds extortion Ransomware Resources Help Net Security: Robots hijacked by ransomware may soon become a reality. Summarizes ... Read More

Specific Ransomware Families and Types Bruce Schneier: New DDoS Reflection-Attack Variant SecurityWeek: Memcached DDoS Attack ‘Kill Switch’ Found ZDnet: Memcached DDoS: This ‘kill switch’ can stop attacks dead in their tracks Ransomware Resources An article on ransomware I contributed to ESET’s Trends 2018 report has been republished as a blog ... Read More

Update to Ransomware Recovery and Prevention For Tripwire, Paul Norris writes about How PCI/DSS Compliance Can Protect Your Systems against New Ransomware Threats. His take on the history of ransomware is a little wobbly, and I’m not sure that PCI/DSS is The Answer, but I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage ... Read More

Catalin Cimpanu for Bleeping Computer: Some Memcached DDoS Attackers Are Asking for a Ransom Demand in Monero. Basically, more on the Memcached story but with a little background on earlier DDoS for ransom attacks. Cimpanu says that “according to Daniel Smith, a Radware security researcher who spoke with Bleeping Computer, ... Read More

Updates to Specific Ransomware Families and Types: Kieren McCarthy for The Register: It’s begun: ‘First’ IPv6 denial-of-service attack puts IT bods on notice Brian Krebs: Powerful New DDoS Method Adds Extortion “Attackers have seized on a relatively new method for executing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks of unprecedented disruptive power … ... Read More