Tag: malware

BlackEnergy trojan strikes again: Attacks Ukrainian electric power industry

January 5, 2016

On December 23rd, 2015, around half of the homes in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in Ukraine (population around 1.4 million) were left without electricity for a few hours. According to the Ukrainian news media outlet TSN, the cause of the power outage was a “hacker attack” utilizing a “virus”. Looking at ESET’s own telemetry, we have … More BlackEnergy trojan strikes again: Attacks Ukrainian electric power industry

ESET predictions and trends for cybercrime in 2016

December 23, 2015

It’s that time of the year when the information security industry takes part in its annual tradition: coming up with cybercrime predictions and trends for the next 12 months. These lists usually range from the mundane to the bizarre, the lighthearted to the dire (perhaps depending on the predictors’ consumption of eggnog and/or dystopian sci-fi media). Many … More ESET predictions and trends for cybercrime in 2016

Operation Buhtrap malware distributed via ammyy.com

November 11, 2015

We noticed in late October that users visiting the Ammyy website to download the free version of its remote administrator software were being served a bundle containing not only the legitimate Remote Desktop Software Ammyy Admin, but also an NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Installation Software) installer ultimately intended to install the tools used by the Buhtrap … More Operation Buhtrap malware distributed via ammyy.com

Schrödinger’s antivirus: The immortality of antivirus software

November 6, 2015

Introduction There are certain subjects that are the equivalent of scraping fingernails across a chalkboard for antimalware researchers, raising their digital hackles and causing grimacing normally associated with phrases like “root canal surgery” and “income tax audit”. In the case of antimalware, it’s being told that “antivirus is dead”. That’s why I gave a webinar … More Schrödinger’s antivirus: The immortality of antivirus software

Multi-stage exploit installing trojan

October 22, 2015

Introduction ESET researchers receive and analyze thousands of new malware samples every day. Earlier this year, one of them caught our attention because it was not an ordinary executable file, but a preference file used by a specific program. Further analysis quickly revealed the file actually is malicious and exploited a vulnerability in the software … More Multi-stage exploit installing trojan