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Domain: sentinelone.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to sentinelone.com.
Stories · 3
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Malware Evades Detection By Counting Word Documents (threatpost.com)
"Researchers have found a new strain of document-based macro malware that evades discovery by lying dormant when it detects a security researcher's test environment," reports Threatpost, The Kaspersky Lab security news service. Slashdot reader writes: Once a computer is compromised, the malware will count the number of Word documents stored on the local drive; if it's more than two, the malware executes. Otherwise, it figures it's landed in a virtual environment or is executing in a sandbox and stays dormant.
A typical test environment consists of a fresh Windows computer image loaded into a VM. The OS image usually lacks documents and other telltale signs of real world use [according to SentinelOne researcher Caleb Fenton]. If no Microsoft Word documents are found, the VBA macro's code execution terminates, shielding the malware from automated analysis and detection. Alternately, if more than two Word documents are found on the targeted system, the macro will download and install the malware payload. -
New and Improved CryptXXX Ransomware Rakes In $45,000 In 3 Weeks (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes:Whoever said crime doesn't pay didn't know about the booming ransomware market. A case in point, the latest version of the scourge known as CryptXXX, which raked in more than $45,000 in less than three weeks. Over the past few months, CryptXXX developers have gone back and forth with security researchers. The whitehats from Kaspersky Lab provided a free tool that allowed victims to decrypt their precious data without paying the ransom, which typically reaches $500 or more. Then, CryptXXX developers would tweak their code to defeat the get-out-of-jail decryptor. The researchers would regain the upper hand by exploiting another weakness and so on. Earlier this month, the developers released a new CryptXXX variant that to date still has no decryptor available. Between June 4 and June 21, according to a blog post published Monday by security firm SentinelOne, the Bitcoin address associated with the new version had received 70 bitcoins, which at current prices is valued at around $45,228. The figure doesn't include revenue generated from previous campaigns. -
Attackers Use Microsoft Office To Push BlackEnergy Malware (csoonline.com)
itwbennett writes: Researchers at SentinelOne reverse engineered the latest variant of the BlackEnergy 3 rootkit (the same malware used in recent attacks against Ukraine's critical infrastructure) and found indicators that suggest it is being used by insiders and that it is the byproduct of a nation-sponsored campaign. 'BlackEnergy 3 exploits an Office 2013 vulnerability that was patched some time ago, so it only works if the target machine isn't patched or an employee (either deliberately or after being tricked into it) executes the malicious Excel document,' writes CSO's Steve Ragan.