Slashdot Mirror
'Old School' Hackers Attack European Governments Using 'MiniDuke' Malware
puddingebola writes "The Guardian reports that hackers have been targeting officials from over 20 European governments with a new piece of malware called 'MiniDuke.' 'The cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which discovered MiniDuke, said the attackers had servers based in Panama and Turkey – but an examination of the code revealed no further clues about its origin (PDF). Goverments targeted include those of Ireland, Romania, Portugal, Belgium and the Czech Republic. The malware also compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, two thinktanks, and an unnamed healthcare provider in the US.' Eugene Kaspersky says it's an unusual piece of malware because it's reminiscent of attacks from two decades ago. 'I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. I wonder if these types of malware writers, who have been in hibernation for more than a decade, have suddenly awoken and joined the sophisticated group of threat actors active in the cyber world.' The computers were corrupted through an Adobe PDF attachment to an email."
"The computers were corrupted through an Adobe PDF attachment to an email." -- It never ends! Why is this still an attack vector? This could have been totally avoided with a little user education and decent network security policy.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Anyone else weary to click the attached PDF?
From Hell's retirement home I stab at thee!" Why do I get this picture of some hackers with walkers and false teeth striking out with a couple of old 8088s from their group home?
The malware also compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, two thinktanks, and an unnamed healthcare provider in the US.
Yes, because anywhere but in the United States, there's no harm in publishing the names of those harmed by malware attacks. I, for one, would be interested in knowing which healthcare provider managed has been infiltrated, since, you know, it could be a life or death kind of thing, unlike research foundations and think tanks.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
These days, who gets excited over pictures of Anna Kournikova?
Back in my day we were real hackers. We modified the wooden cogs with sinew and hasps! And that is the way we liked it! You young'ns and your Edison machines! Not one bit of brains amongst any of ya!
"The computers were corrupted through an Adobe PDF attachment to an email." Links to a PDF describing the attack.
mac: "The pdf was corrupted and could not be opened. Try downloading again."
mac: "The pdf was corrupted and could not be opened, open in raw text view?"
windows: "This document requires age verification to view. Please verify your internet connection and enter a valid credit card number to proceed."
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
all typeos will be hidden despite use of preview button, but will become immediately obvious two seconds after clicking POST.
That 2nd line if you coulnd't figure it out, was supposed to start with "linux: " :P
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I don't understand why hacking through PDF is considered old school. Is the exploit really old?
"The malware also compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, two thinktanks, and an unnamed healthcare provider in the US"
Is there some kind of rule on tech sites that you're not allowed to mention Microsoft Windows in relation to Windows malware.
AccountKiller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_Creation_Laboratory
first thing I thought of when I saw this was, +0rc and Fravia's pages.... wow that takes me back
C|N>K
Eugene Kaspersky says it's an unusual piece of malware because it's reminiscent of attacks from two decades ago. 'I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.
Unless I've been asleep for a very long time, the late 90s/early 00s is one decade ago.
No more slowness and malware. You know you don't have to use it, free software alternatives
http://pdfreaders.org/
Am I the only one who now wants to see a more efficient variant of this attack called the "NanoEarl"?
If you don't load Adobe software, how will you read the early episodes of Platinum Grit?
I'll admit there's no other valid use case for any Adobe software, though.
I know that I'm preaching to the choir here, but it continues to annoy me that PDFs, Flash, Office Docs, Email, etc have any ability at all to infect a machine.
Open the file, read the data, uncompress it if necessary, show it to me. IF (and that's a big if) anything wants to execute ask me before doing so. If that means a prompt every time I open a PDF because some silly thing needs to "execute", then so be it...but opening the file shouldn't execute a damn thing. It should be as benign as opening a text file. Scripting should only run after the user OK's it.
Sure, 90% of people will just click past it, but the only way to get security is to give people the ability to protect themselves. Maybe having some kind of Right Click - Safe View/Safe Mode option might be better, that way people don't have the annoyance of a popup, but have the ability to look without the risk of auto-executing BS.
Personally I use NoScript on FireFox, so I am at least attempting to browse in Safe Mode. But when I open a PDF I don't have that option. That's just asinine.
Luckily, Shadowline have all but the last volume (20) of Platinum Grit available as regular images, derived from the print edition layouts.
I'm not sure whether to praise Oglaf for being hilarious, or damn it for putting the nail in the coffin of Platinum Girt.