Malware

Pierluigi Paganini August 17, 2012
Botnet around us, are we nodes of the Matrix?

Article Published on The Hacker New Magazine – August Edition “Botnet” Introduction The nightmare of millions of infected computers synchronized to conduct an attack on specific target finds materialization in the concept of botnet. In the classic architecture each machine, named bot, executes orders sent by a master unit called bootmaster, which can instruct the various […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 14, 2012
Finfisher, the case of a cyber espionage tool found everywhere

Two days ago, reading the news that lawful interception malware FinFisher was discovered in the wild I thought … “wow finally we have the evidence, probably we will debate for a long time regarding the use of this tool and of similar agents” But as fate would have it the same day came the news […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 10, 2012
Gauss, evidence of ongoing cyber-war and cyber espionage campaigns

As expected a new malware for purposes of cyber espionage was once again identified by the Team of Kaspersky Lab. After Duqu, Flame and Mahdi a new cyber-espionage toolkit has been detected in the same region, the Middle East, and like its predecessor is capable of stealing sensitive data such as online banking credentials, browser passwords and […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 07, 2012
DaVinci code,the surveillance business & eligibility of investigations

No doubts, one of the most advanced cyber threat to the technological evolution is the malware diffusion, we read daily news regarding new unknown agents developed by cybercriminals, governments or hacktivists, but are we really ready to reduce the exposure of our resources? Some weeks ago a news has passed without  too much noise but […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 02, 2012
Malware & cyber espionage, ongoing attacks on sensitive information

Malware once were used primarily to destroy the victim’s PC, but the scenario has completely changed today. While surviving the need of wanting to harm with malicious software, for example in the development of cyber weapons, the current trend is to develop agents that serve primarily to the function of spying. Cybercrime, governments, and groups […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 31, 2012
Rakshasa, is it possible design the perfect hardware backdoor?

Every day we read about new powerful variants of malware of increasing complexity, they are used in fraud schemas by cyber criminals and in cyber attacks during state sponsored operations in cyber warfare scenarios. This malicious software presents a wide range of purposes and functionalities, they are used to steal information or to destroy control […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 26, 2012
New Madi instance and “AC/DC” virus, Middle East as shooting range

The Middle East has always been considered an area of the planet’s turbulent for the continuing conflict and political tensions among the states that inhabit it. In the last two years, the tensions seem to have intensified and with it has grown the diffusion of malware for cyber espionage and for offensive purposes. In the […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 23, 2012
Malware… It’s all about you…

Article published on The Malta Indipendent by Ron Kelson, Pierluigi Paganini, Benjamin Gittins, David Pace The military strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated: “All war presupposes human weakness and seeks to exploit it.” Malicious software (malware) is software that is explicitly designed to exploit vulnerabilities in computing devices and human users to the malicious advantage of the malware […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 21, 2012
Kindsight Security report on the growth of malware diffusion

Today I had the opportunity to analyze the a majority-owned subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, that shows a worrying scenario, around 14 percent of home networks were infected with malware in the period between  April and June 2012. Researchers declared: “We saw an increase in the number of home networks infected as compared to first quarter 2012,” One […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 18, 2012
Mahdi campaign, ongoing cyber-espionage in the Middle East

Again another great investigation of the excellent team of Kaspersky lab and its partner Seculert firm has discovered an ongoing campaign to conduct a large scale infiltration of computer systems in the Middle East area. The campaign has targeted individuals across several states of the area such as Iran, Afghanistan and also Israel. The operation […]