malware

July 3, 2014

SECURITY

The Art of Escape

3 min read

Craig Williams and Jaeson Schultz have contributed to this post. We blogged in September of 2013 about variants of Havex. A month ago on June 2, 2014, I had the chance to give a presentation at AREA41.  In my presentation “The Art of Escape,” I talked about targeted attacks involving watering holes. If we look at the timeline of the attacks we see […]

June 30, 2014

SECURITY

Threat Spotlight: A String of ‘Paerls’, Part One

5 min read

This post was co-authored by Jaeson Schultz, Joel Esler, and Richard Harman.  Update 7-8-14: Part 2 can be found here This is part one in a two-part series due to the sheer amount of data we found on this threat and threat actor. This particular attack was a combined spearphishing and exploit attempt. As we’ve seen in the past, this […]

June 25, 2014

SECURITY

A New Model to Protect the Endpoint, Part 1: Continuous vs. Point-in-Time Security

2 min read

The fundamental security problem that many defenders face is securing their environment in a world of continuous change. IT environments change. Threats change. But today’s threat detection technology doesn’t change. It’s stuck in time, point-in-time to be exact. Sure, detection technologies have evolved. The latest improvements include: executing files in a sandbox for detection and […]

May 29, 2014

SECURITY

RATs in Your Data Center

3 min read

News agencies like ABC News, CNN, and others have run stories on the FBI sting operation against more than 100 hackers who were involved in using and/or distributing the Blackshades RAT (articles in the hyperlinks for reference). For a mere US$40, a novice computer user can become a hacker and gain access to anyone’s computer, […]

May 23, 2014

SECURITY

Threading the Needle on Privacy and Malware Protection

2 min read

We have been clear that we have a distinct approach to Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), specifically the unique way in which we leverage the compute and storage capabilities of the public cloud. Doing so enables us to do a great number of things to help customers more effectively fight malware, particularly when compared to traditional, […]

May 22, 2014

SECURITY

Control Without Compromise Through Superior Data Center Protection

3 min read

The news of high-profile targeted data center attacks has dominated security news recently. But data center attacks are even more prevalent than those headlines suggest. In fact, a survey conducted...

May 22, 2014

SECURITY

Executing on our Vision: Cisco’s Comprehensive Advanced Malware Protection

3 min read

The increased scrutiny on security is being driven by the evolving trends of expanding networks, mobility, cloud computing and a threat landscape that is more dynamic than ever. A combination of these factors has led to an increase in attack access points and a re-definition of the traditional network perimeter. Due to these concerns, we […]

May 21, 2014

SECURITY

Intelligent Cybersecurity at Cisco Live

2 min read

We are all struggling with the Security problem today. Zero-day attacks and advanced persistent threats have outpaced the capabilities of traditional security methods that rely exclusively on single-point-in-time detection and blocking. There is a tremendous amount of complexity in our environments and security expertise is in short supply. At the same time, the movement to […]

May 20, 2014

SECURITY

April 2014 Threat Metrics

3 min read

April kicked off with a 1:292 rate of malware encounters and closed with a rate of 1:315. Highest peak day was April 20 when the rate reached 1:177. Lowest was April 4 at 1:338. The median rate of web malware encounters in April 2014 was 1:292, representing a slight improvement over the median of 1:260 […]