Network World

Attackers go on malware-free diet

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To avoid detection, some hackers are ditching malware and living “off the land” — using whatever tools are already available in the compromised systems, according to a new report from Dell SecureWorks.

In fact, this has been the case for nearly all the intrusions analyzed by the Dell SecureWorks’ Incident Response Team last year.

The cyber criminals typically start out with compromised credentials, said Phil Burdette, senior security researcher at Atlanta-based Dell SecureWorks, Inc.

“For example, they might use phishing attacks,” he said. “They’ll send an email purporting to be from the IT staff, asking users to log in and test their credentials because the IT staff has just created a new email server. Once a user logs in, those same credentials would then be used to access the company’s virtual private network solutions.”

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GameOver ZeuS criminals spied on Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine and OPEC

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The criminals behind the GameOver ZeuS Botnet didn’t just steal $100 million from banks — they also spied on several countries on behalf of Russia, according to a Black Hat presentation Wednesday by an FBI agent and two other security experts.

These countries included Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, and OPEC members, according to FBI special agent Elliott Peterson.

The gang, which called itself Business Club, had two leaders, one of whom was Evgeniy Bogachev who is still uncaught. The FBI is offering a $3 million reward for information leading to Bogachev’s arrest.

[ Follow all the stories out of Black Hat 2015 ]

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T-Mobile caught in crossfire of injected ad war with Flash Networks

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LAS VEGAS – An ongoing conflict between website owners and ad injectors who place unwanted ads on those websites has just flared up into full-blown war, with advertisers and carriers caught in the crossfire.

Take, for example, T-Mobile, which is proudly named as a customer by Flash Networks, a company that brags about creating “new monetization opportunities” for mobile operators when it “inserts the most relevant engagement display into the selected webpages.”

This seems to have been a surprise to T-Mobile. Cynthia Lee, the company’s senior digital media manager, adamantly denied that T-Mobile was using Flash Networks to inject ads into webpages it was serving up to mobile customers.

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