malware

1 min read

Often it is quite surprising how long old, well-known vulnerabilities continue to be exploited. Recently, a friend sent me an example of a malicious script used in an attempted attack against their server: The script attempted to exploit the Horde/IMP Plesk Webmail Exploit in vulnerable versions of the Plesk control panel. By injecting malicious PHP code in the username […]

1 min read

At 10:30 UTC one of the botnet spam campaigns we discussed yesterday took a shift to focus on the recent explosion in Texas. The miscreants responded to the tragic events in Texas almost immediately. The volume of the attack is similar to what we witnessed yesterday with the maximum volume peaking above 50% of all spam sent. We've seen 23 unique sites hosting the malware. This is an attempt to grow the botnet.

2 min read

Summary On April 16th at 11:00pm GMT, the first of two botnets began a massive spam campaign to take advantage of the recent Boston tragedy. The spam messages claim to contain news concerning the Boston Marathon bombing. The spam messages contain a link to a site that claims to have videos of explosions from the […]

11 min read

"A security advisory was just published! Should I hurry and upgrade all my Cisco devices now?" This is a question that I am being asked by customers on a regular basis. In fact, I am also asked why there are so many security vulnerability advisories. To start with the second question: Cisco is committed to protecting customers by sharing critical security-related information in a very transparent way. Even if security vulnerabilities are found internally, the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) – which is my team – investigates, drives to resolution, and discloses such vulnerabilities. To quickly answer the first question, don't panic, as you may not have to immediately upgrade your device. However, in this article I will discuss some of the guidelines and best practices for responding to Cisco security vulnerability reports.

4 min read

Are you excited about March Madness? Turn on a TV and it will be hard to avoid the games, the news, the commentaries, and the jokes about it. If you eavesdrop in any restaurant, bar, or office conversation, I can assure you that you will hear something about it. Even U.S. President Barack Obama filled out a March […]

4 min read

The attacks against South Korean media and banking organizations last week severely disrupted a handful of organizations with a coordinated distribution of “wiper” malware designed to destroy data on hard drives and render them unbootable. At 14:00 KST on March 20, 2013, the wiper was triggered across three media organizations and four banks, setting off […]

2 min read

Innovation never stops in the mobile world, and that rule applies to security threats as well. Network attacks are becoming more sophisticated and even high-tech businesses with the most advanced security may find themselves in the crosshairs as we shift to more devices and anywhere access. Just a few weeks ago, multiple leading social networking […]

1 min read

There is still time to register for the upcoming FIRST Technical Colloquium April 2-3 2013. The event has a very exciting program covering, bitsquatting, webthreats, RPZ, Passive DNS, Real-world monitoring examples, Spamhaus, SIE, Cuckoo Sandbox, Malware Analysis and many more current issues facing the incident response community. The event’s line-up includes notables from Cisco Security Intelligence Operations (SIO), […]

This week, Juniper Networks announced a new cloud-based threat intelligence service focused on fingerprinting attackers’ individual devices. We’d like to officially welcome Juniper to the cloud-based security intelligence market—a space where Cisco has a proven track record of leadership through Security Intelligence Operations (SIO). Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, but in Juniper’s […]