Archive – Securelist

Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit 2016: The Live Blog

Kaspersky — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 13:15:35 +0000

Live blog from Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit on Tenerife, Spain. Stay tuned for updates, photos and news.

Social Media Wall: TheSAS2016

Kaspersky — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 13:10:16 +0000

Malware wallpaper calendars for 2012

David Emm — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:18:07 +0000

As some of you may remember, during 2011 we published a malware calendar wallpaper for each month of the year.

We’re doing so again this year, with updated information from 2011. However, we’ve decided to take a slightly different approach this year and publish all 12 wallpapers in one place. You can find them all here.

We hope you like this year’s designs and find the data interesting.

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for December 2011

David Emm — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:31:58 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware calendar wallpapers.

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Christmas brings many more people online since the Internet provides a quick and convenient way to buy Christmas gifts. This makes it the perfect time for cybercriminals to cash-in on online activity. So it’s also a good time for a reminder about the basic things you can do to reduce the risk of cybercriminals spoiling your Christmas.

Install Internet security software and keep it updated.
Keep Windows and other applications up-to-date.
Backup your data regularly to a CD, DVD, or external USB drive.
Don’t respond to email messages if you don’t know the sender.
Don’t click on email attachments if you don’t know the sender.
Don’t click on links in email or IM (instant messaging) messages. Type the address directly into your web browser.
Don’t give out personal information in response to an email or other message, even if it looks official.
Only shop, bank or socialise on secure sites. Make sure the URL starts with ‘https://’.
Use a different password for each web site or service you use. Don’t recycle them (e.g. ‘jackie1’, ‘jackie2’). Don’t make them easy to guess (e.g. mum’s name, pet’s name). Don’t tell anyone your passwords.

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for October 2011

David Emm — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:45:53 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware calendar wallpapers.

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This month’s wallpaper highlights the worldwide nature of cybercrime.

The Internet has made the world a very small place. Once we connect, we’re able to access web resources anywhere in the world. This has had a profound effect on online criminality. Unlike real-world criminals, who must have sight of their victims, the Internet means that we can all become the potential targets of cybercriminals who may be located anywhere in the world. Cybercrime is, therefore, a worldwide phenomenon.

This doesn’t mean that malware development is spread evenly across the globe. There have always been development ‘hot-spots’ focused on creation of certain types of malware. For example, botnet development in Russia, or the creation of banking Trojans in Latin America.

There can also be victim ‘hot-spots’ too. This may occur where the use of computers – and the Internet – is developing rapidly, but where the level of awareness of the risks is low. Or where a target operating system has a high install-base – as with the spread of fake anti-virus programs for Mac OS in the second quarter of 2011.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the geography of malware, take a look at our report IT threat evolution: Q2 2011

And wherever you live or work, it’s important to understand the risks and take appropriate action to reduce your exposure to them.

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for September 2011

David Emm — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:32:00 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware calendar wallpapers.

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This month marks the anniversary of the arrest of the alleged author of the CIH virus (also known as Chernobyl). This virus was designed to erase the flash BIOS of PCs running Windows 9x, making the machine unbootable – something that was particularly nasty on notebooks, where hardware components like flash memory are built into the motherboard. CIH also had another payload – to overwrite the hard disk with garbage.

This virus was responsible for damage to a large number of computers in South Korea in 2000, three years after its first appearance.

Today the threat landscape is dominated by malware-for-profit, in contrast to the cyber-vandalism of the 1990s. However, CIH provides a reminder that even cyber-vandalism could have a serious financial impact on its victims.

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for August 2011

David Emm — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:24:04 +0000

Here’s our malware wallpaper for August, highlighting some notable malware-related events from the past.

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Malware Calendar Wallpaper for July 2011

David Emm — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:03:00 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware wallpaper calendars.

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As usual, we’ve highlighted some of the notable malware-related events from years gone by.

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for June 2011

David Emm — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 19:35:53 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware wallpaper calendars.

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This month marks the anniversary of the appearance of Cabir, the first malware for mobile phones. This worm – a proof-of-concept worm created by ‘Vallez’, a member of the virus writing group 29A – was designed to infect devices running the Symbian operating system and to spread using Bluetooth.

Mobile malware has come a long way since then.

There are now thousands of mobile threats.
Mobile malware is no longer proof-of-concept.
Like PC-based malware, most of today’s threats are designed to steal money.
There are threats targeting most mobile operating systems. But the majority are cross-platform, Java-based threats.

On top of this, the use of smartphones has increased massively. And we’re all doing so much more with them – at home, at work, or both. As a result, they hold so much more confidential data; and the risk of data leakage from lost or stolen handsets is far greater than at any time in the past.

We all need to be very clear: that’s a computer in our pockets or bags – not just a telephone!

Malware Calendar Wallpaper for May 2011

David Emm — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:53:00 +0000

Here’s the latest of our malware wallpaper calendars.

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One of this month’s highlighted malware incidents is the Morris worm. This worm was released on 2 November 1988 and by the following day was causing major problems for computers on the Internet. This would be nothing out of the ordinary in today’s world. But it certainly was then. The worm quickly infected about 10 per cent of all computers connected to the Internet and, due to a programming error, made them unstable. Of course, in 1988 the Internet was made up of only 6,000 or so computers – it was an esoteric system used almost exclusively by government and academic institutions. So the Internet worm’s time had not yet come. But even so, the Morris worm was one of the first warnings of the importance of applying security patches in a timely fashion.